BARNET magistrates' court number three, with its curtained plate glass windows at street level, could easily be mistaken for a shop. That impression IS nOt entirely lost through the proceedings courtroom, the arrested in Southall on 23 April are presently appearing.
For here justice is being dispensed with a merchant's eye to the tariff. Last week, with stipendary magistrate Peter Badge presiding, the going rate TOT such matters as behaviour and obstructing the police was a f75 fine plus £30 costs.
But it would be wrong to suggest that this is mere rubber-stamp justice or some Star Chamber brand, for here the full majesty of the law is at work.
Defendants addressed 'Mr-'. There is apparent consideration the Bench difficulties of some Asian defendants in understanding English (although are half-suppressed from police witnesses). magistrate gives a careful summary of CaNC Judgement.
There are even a few acquittals — eight out of 77 cases up to last week; a conviction rate of almost 90 per cent, 20 per cent higher than that notched up by the same court when it dealt with the Grunwick defendants.
One acquittal came last Thursday afternoon, when Chowdhury was found not guilty of obstruction.
At 6.30pm on 23 April — an hour before the NF meeting was due to - a four-deep police blocked the High Street Southall Town Hall meeting was to take place.
According to the police evidence, hundred people towards the cordon, pushed it back a couple of feet, and Chowdhury, who was in the front line, did not promptly move when told to do so by a police constable.
Chowdhury's explanation that he had been swept into the front line when the crowd moved off the pavement, and then was too tightly jammed in get back. prosecutor's question 'You were just trying to make the police's job more difficult, weren't you?' (and wouldn't POLLICE VERSO* (OR THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE SPG)
That British brand of KGB [Which calls itself the SPG] Were summoned one by one in quest Of Truth by lie-detector test, And questioned then about Blair Peach With wires upon the head of each.
These thugs-in-blue fell silent when Each needle made a graph with pen;
But then at last a man was found Who made the needles jump and bound Erratically upon the graph With every lie and frantic laugh.
And even then the bully lied When questioned how Blair Peach had died, Though still the lie-detector said:
"This man — with cosh — hit Blair Peach dead.' The man, at last, said it was he...
And Thatcher made him OBE.
Such murder with impunity Puts Justice so in jeopardy, And Britain with uneasy heart Sees Truth and Liberty depart.
I*With thumb turned down. This two-word Roman cry is based on the signal to the gladiators in the amphitheatre not to show which was turned their thumbs towards their breast.] when you sit in the 342 people threatening for the guffaws And the pronouncing Surbinder cordon Southall Dotence SOUTHALL defendants and witnesses at the magistrates' court last Thursday. Surbinder Chowdhury, found not guilty of obstruction, is third from the left. Rabinder Bolina, convicted of threatening behaviour, is on his left.
for alleged threatening behaviour, set Southall trials firmly in their political context.
Bolina, a porter at Heathrow have been 6.30pm on the 23rd, in which a crowd had run up to a police cordon and from which Bolina was seen running According to the arresting Bolina was *very excited' when he was restrained and said We must stop the meeting' And that was it, the sum total of their Bolina's But summing up.
plain.
the People. that lesson week.
trouble.
Did that Fines and legal batons. A statement doctor detailed bruises covering much of his body.
all that Magistrate Badge never even referrec alleged brutality in his The unspoken crime was only too The police were on duty to ensure that a National Front meeting took place and anyone who had the temerity to protest was an Enemy of More that that. Virtually all the 342 defendents are black. If the police went into Southall with the object of giving one of the oldest established and most confident communities of Asians and West Indians in Britain a taste of that country's colonial rule, Sheridan the job of the court is now to sanction The following interchange took place between the prosecuting counsel Socialist and Neville Hall, the Misty singer, who was fined £100 on Tuesday of last Challenge.
NH: The police were looking for PC: What do you mean by that?