Sheffield tree protesters to take legal action against police

Fourteen campaigners arrested in a dispute over tree-felling in Sheffield are to take legal action against South Yorkshire police.

The protesters, who include a Green party councillor and university academics, were detained under trade union legislation for preventing council contractors from chopping down roadside trees.

But the Crown Prosecution Service announced on 2 March that there was “insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction” and none of the group would be prosecuted.

The long-running dispute over the future of Sheffield’s trees has its roots in a 25-year private finance initiative (PFI) deal signed by the Labour-run council in 2012.

A statement on behalf of the protesters who were arrested said on Wednesday that they would take legal action against South Yorkshire police to “challenge the legality of their arrests, charges, and time spent in detention and on bail”.

The 14 were arrested for preventing lawful work under section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992. Last week Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner, said campaigners would no longer be arrested after an outcry among those detained.

Dr Simon Crump, a lecturer at Huddersfield University who was one of the first to be arrested in November, added: “We need to challenge the laws used against people who care about their community and environment, which means we need to take the police to court.

“Fracking is coming to Sheffield and we’ll probably be seeing the police protecting the interests of big business yet again and they need to be stopped.”

Alison Teal, a Green party councillor who was arrested last month, said: “The council are looking for legal alternatives to the trade union legislation to get campaigners off the streets. They value straight kerbs and flat paths more than mature healthy trees. I’d say we’ve reached an impasse.”

A spokesman for the Sheffield Trees Action Group said on Wednesday: “The campaigners welcome the recent statement by the police and crime commissioner, Dr Alan Billings, that the law will not be used against peaceful protesters in future.

“However, those arrested believe that this statement raises as many questions as it answers in relation as to why the law was used against them on several occasions. Campaigners would have welcomed the opportunity to address the charges and defend their actions in court.

“Between 2 November 2016 and 8 February 2017 healthy trees across the city were cut down on the say so of South Yorkshire police asserting the legality of using the 1992 Trade Union Act against peaceful protest, a legality that is now in question.

“Much damage has been done to the ecology of the city because of these actions. This is damage that can never be undone.”

Calvin Payne, who was arrested in November for attempting to prevent the felling of a 100-year-old oak tree, added: “We are not going to accept 14 arrests for something that does not appear to have been a crime. We look forward to holding all those responsible to account.”

The council contractor Amey is removing thousands of roadside trees it believes are “dangerous, dead, dying or diseased” in an effort to transform Sheffield’s roads “from some of the worst in the country to the best in the country within the first five years”.

But campaigners insist the trees are healthy and have accused South Yorkshire police of stifling the right to peaceful protest.

The row made national headlines when a 70-year-old emeritus professor and a 71-year-old retired teacher were arrested in a “dawn raid” by council contractors who ordered residents out of bed to remove their cars before taking the axe to eight old trees.

It was, said the constituency’s MP, Nick Clegg, like “something you’d expect to see in Putin’s Russia rather than a Sheffield suburb”.