. For this kind of systematic, illegal disruption to be carried out in full public view without receiving any coverage should be inconceivable in an open society. But the Hertfordshire police were apparently prepared to think the unthinkable. While attending one of the sites of this lunatic delinquency on a busy section of the M25 last week, they formally arrested not only the Just Stop Oil brats but a broadcast journalist who was covering the incident. Charlotte Lynch, a reporter from LBC radio was a considerable distance from the protesters desporting themselves on the gantry, and was in possession of an accredited press card which a five minute telephone call would have verified. Nonetheless, she was apprehended by officers on 'suspicion of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance' and imprisoned for five hours. That is to say, she was potentially to be charged with precisely the same offence as the protesters would be. Nobody so far as I can see has actually suggested that the arresting officers believed her to be part of the demonstration or even supportive of it. This is where the explanation of the arrest by David Lloyd, Hertfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, becomes really alarming. He did not defend it on the basis that his force made a mistake: that they believed wrongly that Ms Lynch belonged to the Just Stop Oil troops. What he did say was much more far-reaching and political than that. He advised){kind=link}
The arrest of a reporter at a Just Stop Oil protest should alarm all who care about free thought and uncensored debate
When major parts of the country’s busiest motorway are forced to close by deliberate sabotage for four days running, that is a news story of national importance. If you were caught up in those closures – perhaps with tragic consequences like missing your father’s funeral as Tony Manbury did – and then read or heard nothing about them in the news media, you would think it bizarre or even sinister.
You might begin to suspect that there was an active conspiracy to conceal a plot or an official embarrassment (which may not be far from the truth as it happens). For this kind of systematic, illegal disruption to be carried out in full public view without receiving any coverage should be inconceivable in an open society. But the Hertfordshire police were apparently prepared to think the unthinkable.
While attending one of the sites of this lunatic delinquency on a busy section of the M25 last week, they formally arrested not only the Just Stop Oil brats but a broadcast journalist who was covering the incident.
Charlotte Lynch, a reporter from LBC radio was a considerable distance from the protesters desporting themselves on the gantry, and was in possession of an accredited press card which a five minute telephone call would have verified.