Massive police raid targets Travellers amidst claims of police brutality

By MIKE DOHERTY
News Reporter

Above: Grattan Puxon, right, was subjected to a search lasting over seven hours as part of the raids.

CONCERNS are rising over police tactics and intelligence in the wake of Tuesday morning's “massive” raids targeting Irish Travellers after details emerged of the 'humiliating' treatment of a veteran Traveller rights campaigner and the mistreatment of elderly Irish Travellers.

The police claim that the “Operation Elven” series of raids, including one at Smithy Fen Traveller site in Cambridge, are intended to break up a “conspiracy” responsible for last year's high-profile thefts of Chinese artefacts and rhinoceros horn from museums and auction houses across England and Ireland. Eight men, mainly of Irish Traveller ethnicity, have already been jailed and convicted for their involvement in the thefts.

A total of 20 people were arrested, of which seven have been bailed until January 2014, with 13 others; four men, aged 24, 41, 44 and 56, arrested in Cambridgeshire; three men, aged 43, 46 and 59, arrested in Northern Ireland; two men, aged 28 and 46, arrested in Essex; a 53-year-old man arrested in London; a 60-year-old man arrested in Sussex; a 32-year-old man arrested in the West Midlands and a 67-year-old man arrested in Nottingham, remaining in police custody.

A senior Police officer said the operation followed “a long and complex pan-European investigation involving officers from 26 police forces and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.” He added that “many of the stolen Chinese artefacts” where still missing and the the police were “committed to bringing all those who were involved in the conspiracy to justice.”

Yet details are emerging that some people, including an elderly disabled Irish Traveller woman in Cambridgeshire and a veteran Traveller rights campaigner in Essex were subjected to “brutal and humiliating” treatment amidst claims of police heavy-handed tactics and faulty intelligence.

Grattan Puxon, 73, a veteran Roman rights campaigner who lives with his wife in Essex, was raided at dawn by a police search team including taser-armed police from the Essex special mobile force stationed at Boreham, including officers who took part in the mass eviction at Dale Farm in 2011.

Both Mr Puxon and his wife Eileen were shown a warrant before a seven-hour search was made of the small cottage. Three computers, three mobile fines and quantities of files, diaries and other papers were removed. Mr Puxon says that he was subjected to a body search and his wife was supervised while dressing.

Mr Puxon also says that the police seized funds belonging to the Romani 'April 8th' civil rights movement. According to Mr Puxon, the funds and “extensive archives going back fifty years” were taken from a cabinet while he was detained in another room.

Mr Puxon says the 'small amount' of money was intended for work with homeless Roma. “Whether deliberate or inadvertent the effect has been to interfere with our civil rights andcommunity activities,” he says.“Feeding the homeless can’t go on and we have a church hall to pay for.”

No explanation was offered by the police beyond saying an investigation is ongoing. No charges have been brought. When pressed by Travellers' Times, the police admitted that the search of Mr Puxon's adress was in connection with Operation Elven.

Reports are also coming from Cambridge Unite Against Fascism who mobilised to monitor the police raid on Smithy Fen Travellers site in Cambridge. A spokesperson for CUAF said that the “50+ officers” involved had acted beyond the lawful powers of their search warrants and that the “massive” raid has had a traumatic effect on the families living there. “The police had warrants specifically for telephones, telephone boxes, sim cards, data storage devices that are able to store photographs and access social networks, cameras, financial documents, satellite navigation systems, receipts, stolen property i.e. Chinese artefacts and rhino horns,” he said. “In reality they took everything; pictures, furniture, phones, kids phones, bank cards, benefits books, everything from any storage spaces.”

He added that electricity had been cut off to several yards and that the Cambridge Traveller Liaison team were notable by their absence.

CAUF also claim that the raid was both “cackhanded” and may have also been a deliberate attempt to “intimidate” and “harass” a community that is fighting to stay on their land. One disabled Traveller woman who was searched, he added, “had very recently moved onto the yard” and had “no connection to the person whose property they had a warrant to search.”

“She is currently on a nebuliser. She looked really sick when we got there. Really swollen and I hardly recognised her for a minute. She had been outside in the cold in her dressing gown, surrounded by police raiding her property since dawn. They locked her out while they raided her trailer and wouldn’t let her pee without watching her,” said a CAUF legal monitor.

Travellers' Times has also heard from a Traveller community leader who wants to remain anonymous and who claims that a separate police operation in the South East of England hunting for a man suspected of attempted murder is being conducted using similar “heavy-handed” tactics.

“It's an opportunity to fish for information amongst all local Travellers,” she says. “The police searched a 78 year old woman's house looking for the suspect. They broke in at 2.30am while she was asleep and made her and her daughter wait out in the cold in their night clothes while they searched her house. It took several hours and she was not allowed to go in to get some money to go and stay in a hotel or to get something to eat. The police did not find anything and they were not charged because they had nothing to do with the man.”

“It happens all the time. They (the police) turn up at your doorstep and show you photographs of suspects and say that you must know them because you are a Traveller. They say that they are searching for one thing but have a good look around for anything else they can find. They automatically think you are a criminal and that you must be hiding something. The police would not treat any other minority like this.”