New Labour policing - Paul Saville arrested for writing messages on the pavement in chalk

Paul Saville, 23, a second-year sociology and criminology student at the University of the West of England, Bristol, was arrested, locked in a cell for two hours and forced to give DNA samples.

His "crime" was simply to write on a pavement "Liberty. The right to question it. The right to ask: "Are we free?" in protest over what he says in the "loss of civil liberties" in Britain.

Mr Saville has pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal damage “under the value of £5,000” in Bristol, and is awaiting trial.

He said: "Children use chalk on the streets for hopscotch and some cafes advertise with chalk on the pavement so I don't understand why they treated me like this.

"I don't think I have done anything wrong. I considered it to be a fun way of conveying my message. The whole reason I was writing in chalk was because I wanted to get my message across without causing lasting damage."

Fucking hell, its not as if the police have not better the things to do with their time. Like say arresting Tory MP's? 

Do have a read of the whole thing, if ever there was a damning inditement of New Labour policing then this is it: link

One question I have is this: As chalk will be removed with a few drops of rain and no damage has been done, quite how can they charge him with criminal damage? Maybe they will amend the charge to that of the new universal catch all of "environmental damage"...

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