Dale Farm -the Artistic heritage.

Now we are free to speculate so nothing we discuss with the same gravity we have used so far....

As I understand it a play has already been performed in a college or school in the region and been well received.A documentary film made for the BBC by Panorama has been shown(although the troubled Corporation seems reluctant to give it a second viewing).Could Hollywood be interested ?Are there any epic  features ?Certainly we cannot boast a Monument Valley as a backdrop to the action although we do have our very own crusader for law and order-the Leader of the Council.Is it a story of confrontation like the O.K.Coral ? Who are the baddies and who are the goodies ?

If the account given by the Essex police in their September 2011 press conference is credible there lay waiting,all tooled up with stockpiles of dangerous substances,an army of two thousand fierce anarchists who were prepared to use any amount of force.

Yes, there is a story after all:

sending 300 of our finest to raid the place and face numerical odds of 4 to 1 that is something like the "Charge of the Light Brigade" It might appeal to the Hollywood producer.Did our Guys raise a flag when the job was done as they did in the war in the Pacific?

A frisson of excitement was caused when I was reading in the police information document details of injuries sustained by officers at Dale Farm.The first was when an officer was pulling down a fence and something sharp pierced his glove.The second was when an officer stumbled over a newly demolished wall and damaged a knee.

Now...there we have it ...WOUNDED KNEE...makes a good title. There is a snag because the officers although clad with body armour and equipped with shields and visors would not be protected from dangerous chemicals said to be stockpiled on the site, also.... according to he police document only seven officers had Tazers provided for their personal protection though why this was so was never explained.Of the 18 or so injuries reported only one was selected and issued as a police press release (I read it in the Belfast Telegraph although it probably went round the world) It concerned a man who was weilding a big piece of wood with huge nails protuding who is said to have attacked a female officer.Another observation:none of the protestors found on the site seemed to be wearing clothes which would protect them from handling dangerous chemicals and nobody it seems gave dangerous chemicals a thought when the Council contractors dug up the plots in the illegal part of the site.

At present nothing monumental emerges from this story other than the miscalculation of the threat and danger proposed by the protestors who had claimed from the outset that they would resist in a peaceful manner when the Bailiffs came to remove the families.They had explained they would act as human shields and the residents welcomed this kind of support as something they had never experienced before from settled people."We stood because Ye stood" is how one resident put it but there came a time when the pressure got to the old and frail members of the community and further resistance outside the courts became problematical.

Some film might be made of the make belief and the fantastical which Essex policemen have shown some aptitude for in their gamesmanship.A recent report put them at the bottom of the list in dealing with domestic violence and the judicial review blamed them for confusing intelligence (unverified stories)with evidence.

Military men will tell you that raw data must be sifted and carefully analyzed before any decisive action is undertaken.Otherwise one falls victim to counter intelligence and commits fatal blunders.So far this means in the case of Essex police merely that they have lost credibility and their reputation for neutrality in civil cases has been compromised.