Two protesters allegedly tried to stop police taking away suspects after a coach due to transport asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge was obstructed, a court heard.
Police were made aware of people obstructing a coach which was parked outside a Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south-east London, at about 8.30am on May 2 2024, Stratford Magistrates’ Court heard on Monday.
Jony Cink, 23, of Symphony Grove, Lewisham, London, and Indea Barbe-Wilson, 31, of Robert Keen Close, Peckham, went on trial charged with obstruction of the highway.
A number of people were surrounding the coach which was in a bus lane, but traffic was able to move freely down the road initially, Superintendent Matt Cox said.
He said very early on he was informed by the company contracted by Border Force that they would no longer be moving the asylum seekers “as they did not want any negative publicity or whatever it was” and it “was not an enforced move”.
Police became aware that one of the coach’s tyres had been deflated and said a decision was made for officers to try and get in between the protesters and the coach.
About 60 protesters later began to surround three police carriers which suspects were being placed inside, prosecutor Timothy Fulford told the court.
The group was “three layers deep and fortified with push bikes and hire bikes that were abandoned in the road”, Mr Fulford added.
About four hours after the protest started when arrests were being made, “there was a lot of pushing and shoving going on with police officers trying to remove protesters but also protesters trying to stop police officers undertaking their lawful duty”, Mr Cox said.
The whole road became blocked “very quickly”, Mr Cox added.
He tried to communicate with the protesters while a drummer followed him “making an awful lot of noise”, the court heard.
Cink and Barbe-Wilson were both arrested at about 3.15pm and the prosecution allege they were in the group blocking the movement of the police carriers that were seeking to transport suspects to custody, but the Crown could not say at which point the defendants entered the road.
Mr Cox said: “It was probably one of the most chaotic scenes and one of the hardest ones for police officers to deal with in a long time.”
The welfare of the suspects on the police carriers was a concern for him as they did not know who may or may not have needs to care for, he added.
He estimated the protesters were surrounding the police carriers for about two hours until 3.25pm.
Chief Inspector Vicky Causbrook described “several hundred” people watching on at about 3pm who “weren’t able to catch buses or go about their daily lives”.
And a school wanted to let its students leave at the end of the day but “was afraid to because of the noise and the protest and the risk to the students”, she added.
Ms Causbrook’s body-worn camera footage was played to the court which showed a police cordon near the scene as drums and chanting could be heard, and people booing at one stage.
The trial continues.
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