THE HIGH COURT

It is well known that the Council and the Travellers in Basildon  have a long history of challenging each other in the courts culminating in 2011 with a judication favouring the Council.It is beyond my scope to examine all these events but some statements were given publicity in the local media and became common knowledge=for example when a lawyer told the court they would be sending the wrong message to people throughout the country if they let the Travellers stay.

In the latter days Judges remarked on the impatience displayed by the Council almost as if they were anxious to punish their opponents in a vindictive fashion.One compared them to Shylock in the Mercant of Venice insisting upon his pound of flesh.

When judge Antony Edwards Stuart sought to make a final decision he postponed it for a while because he considered that the proposed measures might go further than the terms of the enforcement notice (according to the BBC) and he indicated that the families must be notified individually about the precise nature of the enforcement action taken against them  so that they can respond.Over all he was advocating a calm approach and that the Council should clear the site preferably plot by plot rather than going in with bulldozers and sweeping all before them.He gave permission to clear dwellings from 49 of the 54 sites and warned that certain structures had legal protection and ought not to be damaged.

This posed a problem for the Council and seemed to involve a lengthy process adding to their sense of impatience.

The nature of the Judge's remarks caused a stir among reporters and you may see this in the Brentwood Gazette 7/10/2011 when some commentators thought this would scupper the Council's plan to return the land to greenfield status.

On the day of the eviction,Kathleen McCarthy briefly appeared in Jason Parkinson's film saying the residents were shocked and alarmed at the dawn raid.She had been told that later that day the Bailiffs were going to arrive accompanied by police and begin the clearance of some plots -she had been witness to many evictions but never experienced anything like this dawn invasion- she was very frightened by it

One wonders what the Judge who ordered a calm and considered approach would make of it but it was not the Council or their contractors who had taken the initiative.It was the police.They may have felt that they are not tied down by instructions meant for the Bailiffs.

The families were not notified of the police invasion and the whole event was an insult to the Judiciary and an injustice to the families.Those walls and fences got knocked down anyhow.