Contract awarded for Dale Farm eviction

Bailiffs in operation at Meadowlands

Britain's most notorious anti-Gypsy bailiff company claims it is  taking on the biggest clearance operation ever mounted against a Traveller community
in Britain.
 
Constant & Co., which specialises in clearing
Gypsies from their own land, has won the contract to demolish Dale Farm, home to 500 Irish Travellers near Crays Hill, Essex.
 
The job, worth an estimated three million euro, could entail removing, and on some plots smashing chalets and mobile-homes, and physically forcing up
to 100 families, including children, the elderly and infirm, to leave the
district.
 
Over twenty-five people, including members of  anti-fascist groups and
the Catholic Church, protested outside the Basildon Centre on 10  December, International Human Rights Day as the council's cabinet met to award the deal. 
 
They held up placards saying, "CONSTANT & CO ARE RACIST THUGS", "STOP THE BAILIFF BULLIES" and "STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING."
  
A spokesperson for Dale Farm said afterwareds that along with their homes
and children’s primary school, the families stand to lose their unique youth-club community centre and Saint Christopher’s Chapel.
 
“This is ethnic-cleansing,” said one mother. “But the council are trying to disguise that fact with a lot of politically correct language."
 
Because of the high cost of the work, Basildon were compelled to put it out to
tender in the official Journal of the European Union. In its ad the council stated that the winner bidder must ‘demonstrate a commitment to upholding the principles of equality and diversity legislation and be sensitive and responsive to the needs of people.’
 
Basildon's decision to award the contract to Constant and co and drawn criticism from Traveller campaigners. They say Constant has conducted previous evictions in a way that flaunted EU health and safety regulations, and resulted in the needless destruction of private belongings. 
 
Jean Sheridan, a Dale Farm mother of triplets, is fearful of the injury bailiffs
could cause her babes. She hopes that before Constant is ordered in she will be able to mount a case in the European Court of Human Rights.
 
“We have nowhere else to go and my babes need medical help,” Jean
says. “They were born prematurely and lucky to live. How will they survive the
terrors Constant will bring?”