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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice.

We Want Justice

By Grattan Puxon

Ustiben Report
 
According to a UK Travellers' spokesman, what started on October 27 as a picket over the death of a prisoner in Bullingdon goal could broaden this winter into protest action around the country.
 
Many of those who attended the Bicester demonstration, which was called by the Rooney family, are the victims of recent evictions by bailiffs and police across the UK.
 
They came from as far away as Manchester, Birmingam and Basildon. Their posters, calling for justice for the late Danny Rooney, may find an echo soon wherever Travellers' rights are being denied.
 
"We're facing eviction in Essex," said Cathleen Rooney, a sister of Danny. "The protest we've done today is just a start -- we want to protect our homes and our yards from the bulldozers."
 
Mrs. Rooney says her neighbor at Five Acres Farm, Wickford, had her yard barricaded with earth banks this month, while five other yards nearby have been bulldozed.
 
These earth banks are illegal, according to advice taken by the Irish Travellers Movement 2006.
 
In the course of the last of three evictions at Hovefields Avenua, Constant & Co bailiffs, hired by Basildon District Council, smashed one mobile home with a JCB and crushed a kitchen unit.
 
Basildon Council has so far refused to re-accommodate Mrs. O'Brien and her six children, made homeless by the eviction. But a review of her case is now pending.
 
The founder of the Washington-based Advocacy Project Iain Guest visited Hovefields and Dale Farm on a fact-finding mission on October 26. He interviewed families and took away video film evidence of conditions at Five Acre Farm.
 
"The most shocking thing is the way the ground has been left after the evictions," he said. "The dirt, rubble and stagnant water is both a danger to health and an eyesore. Yet the council claims to be restoring the Green Belt."
 
Joanne O'Brien, aged nine, showed Mr. Guest the scar on her heard from a cut requiring four stitches. She says she has twice injured herself on debris left by Constant.
 
Resident Martin Doran said there have been at least 30 such injuries. He also complained that exposed electric wiring was left at one closed yard.
 
Basildon Council leader Malcolm Buckley earlier this year pushed through a vote to spend £2.9 million on clearing between 120 and 180 unauthorized Gypsy caravans from the area.
 
Within the next week, two further yards belonging to Charles Saunders and a member of the Smith family, one of them at Pitsea, are expected to be bulldozed.
 
These two yards have already been vacated but Basildon plans to demand payment for the operations. Failure to pay will result in seizure of the land.
 
Mr. Buckley wants to demolish Dale Farm, the largest Travellers' community in the UK. He says he will send in the bailiffs there whenever the law allows. At present Dale Farm village is protected by a High Court Order and will be the subject of a judicial review next year.
 
A report on council closure and seizure of private yards was submitted this week to the Government's Gypsy Task Force by Bridie Jones, co-ordinator of the ITM in the UK.
 
"This is another way councils are crippling our efforts to help our selves," said Bridie. "Many families have lost their land and can't afford to buy more."
 
The ITM believes Travellers could provide about one third of the additional yards needed throughout the UK. But if bulldozing of private yards continues on its present scale this possibility will be lost.
 
Official figures show that councils across Britain are spending £18 million (euro 25 million) a year on harassment of Gypsies. This move-on and eviction work amounts to ethnic-cleansing, says Mrs. Jones.
 
Report To Task Force
 
The seizure of land owned by Gypsies in the UK is having a serious  impact on our ability to provide the accommodation needed by the many families now forced to live illegally, Bridie told the Task Force.
 
According to Government estimates, at least 4,000 to 5,000 new yards or pitches must be created to enable those whose caravans are now on unauthorized land.
 
But much of this is private land owned by Gypsies and Travellers.
 
The ITM believes the investment this represents could -- if properly used -- contribute as much as 30 to 50 percent to the overall accommodation needs of our people.
 
That is between 1,500 to 2,000 yards around England and Wales alone.
 
Instead, this land is being taken over by force by local councils bent on the ethnic-cleansing of Gypsies from their areas as a means of avoiding their long-term responsibilities to accommodate homeless families under the new Housing Act (2004).

Right Of Way Blocked
 
As in many instances, banks erected by Constant & Co for Basildon Council now block the right of way of the property owners onto their own land at Five Acres Farm and Gipsy Hill, Hovefields Avenue, Wickford.
 
The ITM quote another case where Patrick Egan, for the past 18 months, has been attempting to prevail upon Hertsmere Council in Hertfordshire to allow him to graze his ponies on land owned by him at Twin Oaks Farm, Hertfordshire.
 
Families were brutally evicted from their yards here on 6 January 2005. This land is now enclosed by earth banks and access denied to the owners.
 
Worse almost than this is the situation of landowners at Meadowlands whose caravan park was bulldozed by Constant, hired by Chelmsford Borough Council, in January 2004.
 
The council is claiming £18,000 from each of the yard-owners. These yards are very small (just room for chalet, touring trailer and lorry). By demanding such payment the council is in effect bankrupting families making it impossible for them to provide for them selves by buying land elsewhere.
 
A case in point is Kathy Buckley, whose mobile home was burnt during the Meadowlands eviction.  .
 
The Task Force has already been made aware of the impact on the Codona family and others as a result of the long dispute and final destruction of the large Woodside Caravan Park in Bedfordshire.
 
It is well aware of the dozens of other instances where private caravan parks, denied planning permission, have been closed by local authorities.
 
Hundreds of families have as a result been thrown onto the road, denying their children education and depriving those involved of their basic human right to a home, and the security of that home.
 
"The point I wish to make is that in addition the the human misery caused, this is a massive waste of scarce resources, " says Bridie. "This land grab across the country is crippling the ability of our people to provide yards for themselves.
 
This policy, the ITM says, needs to be reversed and a halt made to evictions and move-on operations. Families must be allowed to stay on their own land -- at least until other sites can be located.
 
"Justice is being demanded for all those families who have been left out in the cold this winter," says Richard Sheridan, chair of the ITM. "Our protests will continue and grow bigger until our voice is heard."
 
Prison Death Enquiry
 
The governor of Bullingdon prison, Phil Taylor, has agreed to meet with Danny Rooney's widow, Mrs. Ann Rooney, and ITM representative Bridie Jones next week.
 
This was announced during the four hour demonstration by over 60 Travellers outside the prison yesterday.
 
Danny Rooney, aged 38, died in the prison last month leaving eight children, the youngest only nine months old.
 
Travellers used loud-hailers to get across their message: WE WANT JUSTICE, WE WANT ANSWERS.
 
Pressure Points
 
Please support these actions by contacting:
 
Phil Taylor, prisoner governor:  01869353100
 
Malcolm Buckley, Basildon Council leader: buckleymr@btinternet.com
 
Constant & Co, the bailiff hired by many councils to evict Travellers: 71 High Street, Riseley, Bedfordshire MK44 1DD

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