Student arrested for protest at army base

Jan 12 2010 By Adam Courtney, Staines News

• previous
• 1
• 2

Jeremy Moulton was arrested under anti-terror laws after protesting outside an army base

IT WAS a show of force usually reserved for suspects on the radar of MI5.

But when police used a helicopter, armed officers and dogs to swoop on a Staines home on June 28, 2008, it wasn’t to arrest an Al-Qaeda operative.

Their target was an 18-year-old politics student who had put a poster outside the home of the town’s Army Cadet Force, a youth organisation for 12 to-18-year-olds.

Jeremy Moulton, now 19 and in his first year at Hull University, went home after making his stand.

He said: "I heard the helicopter and then could see a torch shining near the house and I jokingly thought to myself, ‘They’ve come for me’. But they actually had.

"Four policemen knocked on the door, my mum answered, and they came into my room. I was sitting in my boxer shorts and they asked me what I had been doing that night. They then arrested me under the Terrorism Act for inciting hatred.

"They spent two hours looking through the house, they took my bag, which had all sorts of things in it, my computer, my student books and then I was taken to the police station by about four others, who were armed."

Jeremy, of Ruskin Road, says he has been anti-war all his life and describes himself as a pacifist.

He was spurred into action after discovering the cadets learned to shoot by firing at human-shaped targets.

The student went home and created a banner that read, ‘Stop training murderers’. He printed each letter on a separate piece of paper, laminated it and

went back to the cadet building in Langley Road.

He says a neighbour came out and asked what he was doing and after an amicable conversation, during which the man pointed out he had got a couple of letters the wrong way around, he went home again.

The teenager thought that was the end of the matter – until he ended up in a cell.

"I can’t explain what it was like in there," he said. "I felt totally powerless and it made me completely aware of the powers of the state. I am totally against violence. All I wanted was to get my opinion heard."

Scared of what his parents would say and anxious to get out, he took the duty solicitor’s advice, accepted a caution for breaching the peace, and was released.

"I didn’t think I had breached the peace at all, but all sorts of things go through your mind in there and I thought I’d go out and that’d be the end of it."

However, Jeremy is starting to discover that having a police record can cause complications.

He has already been refused an internship at the Houses of Parliament and he says it is unlikely he will be allowed to the US because he will have to apply for a visa and attend an inter-view at the US embassy.

He says he regrets accepting the caution and believes he was badly advised. "It is not right I should have to live with this because the implications are huge and I am not a terrorist," he added.

Staines lawyer Alex Tribick said: "Jeremy feels that he has been the victim of heavy-handed and over-zealous policing. The taxpayers of Spelthorne may well wonder whether this is an appropriate use of the police budget.

"There is still a basic right to freedom of speech in this country and my client feels that those human rights have been infringed. At the time it was given, Jeremy did not appreciate the serious impact that this caution may have upon him for the rest of his life.

"With the benefit of legal advice, Jeremy is now considering his position in seeking to have the caution overturned, making a complaint against the police, and whether his rights have been infringed under the European Human Rights Act."

Police confirmed they used eight units and the helicopter to arrest Mr Moulton, but refused to confirm or deny his intial arrest was under the Terrorism Act. They confirmed he was later cautioned for a public order offence.

Student arrested for protest at army base – Staines News