Tory MP calls police 'daft' in email mistakenly sent to squatters at his HQ
'I am mightily pee'd off at police,' wrote Mike Freer over protest at suburban office where Margaret Thatcher launched her career http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/28/tory-mp-mike-freer-police-daftGuardian article link
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The squatters, including Pete Phoenix (centre), had been sleeping in tents pitched outside Mike Freer's constituency office. Photograph: Velar Grant/Demotix/Corbis
The Conservative MP in Margaret Thatcher's former constituency has made damning comments about police officers who have been overseeing a week-long housing protest on the forecourt of his constituency office – in an email intended for a colleague but instead sent to the protesters.
The Finchley MP Mike Freer describes advice from the Metropolitan police about how to manage the protest as "daft". The protesters have nicknamed the disclosure as "Daftgate".
Freer was already facing embarrassment about the week-long housing protest in his front yard. Since last Friday protesters had set up two tents and a gazebo and slogans have been filling the forecourt. Many of his constituents have come along to support the week-long protest.
In the email – seen by the Guardian – he calls the protesters "numb-nuts" and the police "daft", saying: "I am mightily pee'd off at the police. I feel like sending the bill to the commissioner saying your daft advice landed us with this bill."
The six protesters camped on the forecourt for the past week were removed by bailiffs at 6.30am on Friday.
Pete Phoenix, one of the demonstrators, said the protest focused on legislation, introduced last year, that made squatting in empty residential buildings a criminal offence (it was previously a civil offence).
Freer is an architect of the law – section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (Laspo) Act 2012.
Phoenix said: "With 1.5m empty properties in the UK and a rising problem of homelessness – estimated at 400,000 hidden homeless – the time and effort being put into criminalising sheltering in empty properties (squatting) goes against common sense.
"These laws are a further example of attempts by the current government to penalise the poor while tax evaders and corporate profiteers run away with the stolen wealth of the country."
The protesters say Freer's office allowed them to protest on the forecourt last Friday. They then construed this invitation as a licence to remain and the standoff between the two parties began.
When the bailiffs arrived, they gave the protesters a notice in the name of Finchley and Golders Green Conservative association asking them to vacate the premises under common law, a rarely used legal route.
Freer said: "The squatters and the camp were disrupting my constituency office and its presence was intimidating. A polite request for the squatters to leave was ignored as were instructions on how to arrange an appointment; it was decided we had no alternative but to lawfully remove the squatters from the property."
Paul Ridge, a solicitor at Bindmans, who has been advising the protesters, said: "The manner of the eviction was very unusual. It seems that self-help remedies under common law were applied instead of going to court to seek an eviction order.
"Mike Freer may not like what has happened but the police behaved entirely properly during this protest. Police are not there to adjudicate between two parties who disagree but to uphold the law.
"The key issue here is about the right to protest. The police were clearly satisfied that no criminal offence had been committed."
A Met spokesman said: "Barnet officers were at the constituency premises of MP Mike Freer this morning whilst bailiffs moved the protesters on. Officers from Barnet were there to prevent a breach of the peace. No arrests were made."
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