Alfie Meadows, the student who almost died after having his skull fractured by a policeman during the student protests – and who other police tried to prevent getting to hospital afterwards – is still facing a trumped up charge of violent disorder, presumably intended to make it look as if ‘he was asking for it’ to save face for the police and avoid charging the police officers responsible, despite his mother and his lecturer being among many witnesses who say he was not involved in any violence towards police (1).
Meadows has to appear in court next month.
This parallels other cases in which police who have made unprovoked attacks on protesters have charged the victim with violence or assaulting a police officer – including charges brought against undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. During protests against the Drax power station in 2006 Kennedy recalled intervening to stop police hitting a woman protester with batons. They knocked him to the ground and jumped up and down on his back, causing permanent injuries to his spine, then charged him with assaulting a police officer. The charges were only dropped once it was found out he was an undercover officer himself (2) – (3).
You can sign the petition calling for charges against Meadows to be dropped on this link and if you want to help the campaign in other ways you can find out more on this link.
EDIT 25th April 2012 : It seems the Meadows case may not be as straightforward as it first seemed as Meadows seems to have admitted to having taken part in lifting and pushing metal barriers towards police (4).
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