If you’re not in the trade, they can be confusing occasions. These are some useful pointers for novice buyers Just recently home after five days displaying our stock at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair , and I’m resting. You need to: it’s a peculiarly exhausting business, exacerbated by the fact that I had flown in from Sydney via London, and kept waking at 2am longing for bacon and eggs. For the first three mornings I eventually got up at 6am and went out to dinner. Worked for me. Great steaks in New York. We do three fairs a year – California, New York, and London – and none of them are much fun. In the olden days (I feel an old fart moment coming on) fairs had a real buzz about them. During set-up (when dealers unpack their trunks and shelve the books) other dealers would crowd round, checking out each book as it emerged, picking up the occasional bargain. Set-up was why you were there, to see if you could buy something before the public got a look-in, and sell enough in that hectic first few hours to cover your costs. No more. Things are tighter and tougher, we’ve seen each other’s books in catalogues and online, and there is no excitement during the two-day (too long!) set-up period. We sold one book for $5,000 (£3,000), which is better than five for $4,000, and pretty much in line with what I would have expected. The key to surviving a fair emotionally is to keep expectations realistic, which means low. I set our bottom line hope at sales of $40,000, though whether such a sum is profitable depends on what you have sold. Sometimes we have books on consignment at 20% to us, at others we may be selling something we own – better yet, have owned for ages – and get an entirely positive cashflow boost. I need one. I have, alas, taken my eye off the ball this last year, with reading for the Man Booker International prize , and the effect on the business has been predictable. Even my bank manager is starting to twitch an eyelid. So it was essential both to get some money in from New York, and to generate a project or two with clients or other dealers: find a collection to buy, an archive to sell, a line to pursue. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and it may be hard for you to envisage what I’m talking about. People in specialist trades often do this, and lose their audience in a welter of trade jargon and inappropriate assumption that one will be understood. So: What is an antiquarian book fair, anyway? It is an arena for members of the rare book trade publicly to offer their stock, and for collectors to peruse it. That sounds a little dull, doesn’t it? OK, then. Dealers sit in their little, lit booths, displaying their wares like girls in Amsterdam windows. A few potential customers drift by. Sometimes money is exchanged. Some pleasure is had. Usually nobody gets hurt, but many wives are not told of the transaction. Or husbands. What sort of things might one see at the fair? Enticing ones, naturally. Hand-coloured antique maps, letters by Freud or Dickens, leatherbound sets of Jane Austen, rare books on travel, nature or military history, books illustrated by Arthur Rackham or Beatrix Potter, first editions by most of the greatest writers. Why are first editions valuable? They’re not. Most first editions are worthless, because most books are first editions – that is, not worth reprinting. A tiny number of these first editions are desirable because they are by collected authors, and were printed in small numbers. How can you tell if a book is a first edition? Generally, it can be assumed unless there is any evidence to the contrary. Why are some authors collected? Most, because they deserve to be: John Milton, Jonathan Swift, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Graham Greene. Some, because whatever their deserts, people love them: Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, JK Rowling. Does the condition of the book matter very much? Hugely, as with all collectibles. If a book looks fresh and near-as-damn-it new, it will fetch many times more than a tired and worn copy. With 20th-century books, the presence of the original dust wrapper is crucial. A first edition of Brighton Rock (1938) without the dust wrapper is worth, say, £2,000. With it? I just paid £80,000 for one, on behalf of a customer. Isn’t that silly? Very. But the argument is that a book without its dust wrapper is as incomplete as a Chippendale chair without its legs. Do you think that’s a fair argument? No. How does one know if the asking price is right? There is no “right” price for a rare book, though there are certainly wrong ones. If you buy from a reputable member of the trade, and you are happy with your purchase, then the price is probably right enough. But isn’t a book worth whatever it fetches? Certainly not. If I convince a muddle-headed plutocrat to pay me £1m for a common book, it doesn’t mean it is worth it. It means I am a crook, and he is an idiot. Books can be under- or over-priced. That’s part of the fun: trying to locate the former and avoid the latter. When I find what I want, should I ask for a discount? Yes. Will I get one? These days, for sure. What advice could you give to a new collector? Only buy what you like. Always buy the best copy you can afford. Buy fewer books, at a higher level. Buy from someone you have reason to trust. Spend 30% more than you can afford. What about buying and selling at auction? Auctioneers claim that (1) you get the best bargains if you buy at auction, and (2) you can get the best prices if you sell at auction. Both can’t be true, though it is amazing how many people believe it. But about 90% of the books at auction are sold to members of the book trade. It’s best to know what you are doing. Can’t you get a better deal on ebay, and cut out the middleman? Every now and again you might. You are more likely to end up roasted with an apple in your mouth. How do you explain the allure of rare books? You either feel it or you don’t. It’s a matter of taste, and inclination, and, like love, doesn’t need to be justified. I think holding a copy of the first edition of Ulysses, or Great Expectations, is thrilling, especially with a presentation inscription by the author. If you don’t feel similarly, you haven’t got the makings of a book collector. In fact, I don’t even think I would like you. Final note: we ended up with takings of $60,000, which was not bad, and buying three or four things at reasonable prices, that will make one or two of our collectors very happy. I am now eating breakfast in the morning, and dinner in the evening. Maybe I will sleep through the night one day soon. Booksellers Rick Gekoski guardian.co.uk
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Leo Hickman: Does living in an urban centre have a smaller environmental impact than living in a rural area? Having resided in both, I have often wondered whether living in a city has a smaller environmental impact than living in the countryside. I suspect it does, but it would be nice to have a definitive view, one way or the other. R Lassiter, by email At first glance, it would certainly seem logical that city-living is the greener option – if it is, indeed, an option. Surrounded by public transport, you don’t need to own a car. And by living in dense, compact housing, you should need less in the way of resources and energy. The economies of scale and superior efficiencies available in a city should, in theory, always trump those in a rural environment. There certainly seems to have been a slew of books and reports arguing much this point in recent years. I once interviewed the New Yorker’s David Owen about his book Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability and he made a very compelling case. But he also admitted – like myself – that he doesn’t now live in the Big Smoke, which suggests there is still some way to go to convince people to remain in these hubs of eco-efficiency once they have the opportunity to leave. I have also visited Donnachadh McCarthy ‘s home in south London which displays what can be achieved when you take urban eco-living to the absolute extreme. (In the context of a westernised lifestyle, of course.) It’s hard to imagine Donnachadh achieving quite the same results in a rural setting. But there must be some environmental positives to country-living, surely? You can grow your own food, should you desire. And better source renewable solid fuels, such as timber. But, as David Owen points out, if everyone moved from cities to the countryside, it would likely trigger an environmental crisis as there just wouldn’t be enough land to go round for everyone to live the “good life”. So this question must also raise wider issues of equity about the ownership and availability of land and other natural resources. So, as urban populations swell, as is the current global trend , what future role will the countryside hold? Will our green expanses beyond the ‘burbs exist solely to supply cities with food and energy? Perhaps, in a way, they already do? Or is this issue a little more complex and nuanced that we might otherwise imagine? This column is an experiment in crowd-sourcing a reader’s question, so please let us know your views and experiences below (as opposed to emailing them) and I will join in with some of my own thoughts and reactions as the debate progresses. I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate too. • Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk. Or, alternatively, message me on Twitter @LeoHickman Ethical and green living Carbon emissions Waste Travel and transport Leo Hickman guardian.co.uk
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Some leaders can become so demonised that it’s impossible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way It happened again in Madrid a few weeks ago. I was at a meeting of development officials and researchers and Venezuela came up in conversation. Cue mayhem. Is it possible to mention Hugo Chávez without becoming embroiled in name-calling, exaggerations and, not infrequently, brazen lies? While it is fairly normal that politics can become partisan very quickly (just look at the US at the moment), the point of being a development professional is meant to be that you step outside the partisan for a minute to examine, wait for it, the evidence. I don’t claim that this is easy, because evidence can be skewed by its provider (often, in international development, the government of the country in question). But that is the objective. So I am constantly surprised how many development professionals find it hard to do this when Venezuela gets mentioned, or Cuba, or Bolivia. It is as if evidence and balanced analysis are appropriate for some governments but not for others. If you say, “inequality appears to have gone down considerably in Venezuela”, you risk being accused of being a Chavista. But if you say, “inequality appears to have gone down in Ethiopia”, no one would start accusing you of being a zealous supporter of Meles Zenawi. The same problem exists on the other side too. When I was in Colombia, some in the human rights community were incapable of saying anything positive about the administration of President Alvaro Uribe , because they accused his government of making shady deals with paramilitaries. I would call this the “pitchfork effect” (technically known as the “e-halo effect”), whereby a leader can become so demonised in certain countries or populations that it is no longer possible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way. The more a leader is demonised, the more his or her supporters will exaggerate how wonderful they are. It is the converse of the more well-known “halo effect”, whose most famous beneficiary in recent times was Nelson Mandela, a politician to his fingertips, embroiled in many of the things politicians get embroiled in, and responsible for as many bad decisions as good ones on economic policy in South Africa. But criticise him and you are criticising the freedom that he personifies. It is a handy effect to have. There are some leaders who are so vile that applying a balanced assessment to them seems tasteless. The murderous juntas of Argentina and Chile in the 70s and 80s spring to mind. But even Augusto Pinochet, a man who oversaw barbaric murders and torture , appears to be granted by many a balanced assessment of the time he was in power. And that is probably right. It is not condoning his actions to assess how his period in power affected Chile’s economic conditions. So why not Chávez? One word often used to describe him is “dangerous”, and this may be the key to understanding the rage he engenders. It is hard to consider him a military threat, the odd phoney war with neighbouring Colombia notwithstanding. No, it is the danger he poses to normality that people who oppose his policies find so worrying. His rhetorical attack on modern capitalism is so strong, that were he to demonstrate any improvements in Venezuela with his rather vague “21st-century socialism”, the conventional wisdom favouring free markets and a limited state would be challenged. It is the same reason that the US is so obsessed with Cuba – the danger to capitalism is allowing another model to succeed. I am saying all this because the first step we need to take when analysing the achievements and failures of the new left in Latin America is to do our best to be balanced, taking the evidence as we find it, and trying to incorporate new evidence into our analysis, even if it does not fit our assumptions. Hugo Chávez Jonathan Glennie guardian.co.uk
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Police say fatal stabbing of four members of the same family at their Northampton home was ‘not random’ A missing hire car could provide the clue to solving the murder of a university lecturer, his wife and two daughters, who were found dead at their home in Northamptonshire. Police said they were urgently looking for a five-door silver Vauxhall Corsa with registration plate BG60 PMO, which is believed to have been at the family’s address on Friday 29 April. The bodies of Jifeng Deng, 46, and Helen Chui, 47, were discovered downstairs in their detached house in Simpson Manor, in Wootton, by police officers on Sunday evening. The bodies of Xing, 18, and Alice, 12, were discovered upstairs. The police said all four had multiple stab wounds and called the attack “not random”. “The car was hired to one of the deceased, but is not at the address and its whereabouts are currently unknown,” the police said, issuing a warning to members of the public not to approach the car or any driver. Northampton police said more than 30 detectives were working on the investigation. A spokesman said: “At this moment in time the motive behind the deaths does not appear to be due to burglary or robbery.” Neighbours became concerned after the family, who are believed to have lived at the house for five years, had not been seen for several days and the curtains were closed. On Monday police were conducting house-to-house inquiries and said they were “liaising with residents and local people to offer reassurance and advice over any safety concerns”. However, the senior investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Glyn Timmins, said in a press conference he did not believe there was a wider risk to the public. Ding, a senior lecturer in environmental science at Manchester Metropolitan University, was often away for work, while his two daughters attended local schools. One neighbour, Andrew Dixon, who knew the couple as Jeff and Helen, said: “This is suburbia, not the Bronx. You don’t expect to come home to your house one evening and see police swarming everywhere … Jeff was a lecturer at a university – he was quiet but a well-to-do man.” Family friends also paid tribute to the couple’s daughters, who were keen musicians: “They were both such bright girls. It’s very sad.” The police said they were also trying to trace a yellow Fiat 500 which was driven by Xing, also known as Nancy, and which is thought to have been sent for repair at an unknown garage. Knife crime Crime Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk
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• 2011 profits may be only half of expected levels • Like-for-like sales down 12.6% in last quarter • Ice-cream sales fail to offset fall in demand for chocolate Chocolate maker Thorntons has hit the market with its second profit warning of 2011, blaming the recent sunny weather for a slump in sales over Easter. While most of the retail sector has welcomed the mini-heatwave that bathed Britain for much of April, it proved bad news for Thorntons’ with sales of eggs and other products down. It brought forward its latest trading update to Tuesday morning, after calculating that profits for this year could be just half of the City’s estimates. The warning came just four months after the company blamed December’s snow for a disappointing performance over Christmas. Jonathan Hart, Thorntons’ chief executive, said the company had been faced with “unprecedented weather conditions” during its two key trading periods. “The past quarter has been extremely challenging particularly in our own stores and for franchisees and we foresee the prospect of this weakness in high street footfall and spending continuing,” said Hart. He added that Thorntons had tried to cushion the impact of the warm weather by selling ice-cream at more stores, but this could not compensate for the drop in demand for chocolate. Like-for-like sales at Thorntons’ own stores fell by 12.6% over the last 16 weeks, while trading at its franchises slumped by more than a fifth. Thorntons, which had been expected to announce its third-quarter trading update on Thursday, estimated the pre-tax profits for the current year will be between £3m and £4.5m. Analysts had expected the firm to match last year’s profits of £6.1m. So far this year, Thornton’s comparable sales are 7.5% lower than a year ago. Hart, who joined the firm in January, has promised to deliver a strategic review to turn Thornton’s prospects around. This is expected to include closing some of the company’s 600 stores . Shares in Thorntons dropped 8% to 74p in early trading on Tuesday. Thorntons Retail industry Weather Food & drink industry Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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President Asif Ali Zardari hits back at US accusations that his country knew al-Qaida leader Bin Laden was in Abbottabad President Asif Ali Zardari has hit back against American accusations that his country secretly sheltered Osama bin Laden, who was killed on Sunday night, and has claimed Pakistan played a role in leading US special forces to the al-Qaida leader. “Some in the US press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing,” Zardari said. “Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact.” It was the first high-level rebuttal by the Pakistani government after a day of trenchant criticism from US commentators and officials , who questioned how the Saudi fugitive managed to live for years in a wealthy suburb close to one of Pakistan’s most prestigious military facilities. The dramatic 40-minute air assault that killed Bin Laden was carried out by US Navy Seals who crossed from Afghanistan in four helicopters and targeted a house in Abbottabad, a two-hour drive north of Islamabad. The spacious $1m (£600,000) compound is located a few streets from the Pakistan Military Academy , the country’s equivalent of Sandhurst or West Point. “People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long,” said White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan. It was “inconceivable” that Bin Laden did not enjoy a “support system” in Pakistan, he said. Writing in the Washington Post , Zardari said his country was “the world’s greatest victim of terrorism”, called Bin Laden “the source of the greatest evil of the new millennium”, and claimed that Pakistan had played a role in identifying the al-Qaida courier who ultimately led US forces to Bin Laden. “Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of co-operation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilised world,” he said. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, perhaps anxious not to alienate a partner still vital to actions against al-Qaida, appeared to partly agree. “In fact, co-operation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding,” she said. Zardari’s comments will please Pakistan’s powerful military, the real target of American accusations of double-dealing. The army’s spokesman has been silent over the Abbottabad operation, although senior officials from Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency insisted they had not been informed beforehand. The army faces many questions as well as anger over the breach of sovereignty, including how a fleet of US helicopters managed to fly through Pakistan’s air defences and return to Afghanistan unhindered. Precise details about Bin Laden’s final moments are still emerging. US officials said he was killed by gunfire in the final stages of the 40-minute assault, as was one of his sons and his youngest wife. The White House claimed she had been used by Bin Laden as a human shield. Bin Laden, codenamed Geronimo for the operation, was shot twice, in the head and chest. Brennan denied the soldiers were under orders to kill, not capture. “If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done,” he said. After his death soldiers shouted “Geronimo EKIA”, meaning enemy killed in action. His body was taken by helicopter to a US aircraft carrier in the Arabian Gulf and buried at sea. Barack Obama said: “The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.” Such was the American distrust of the notoriously leaky Pakistan government that it did not even inform it of the raid in its own territory until after the helicopters had cleared Pakistani airspace. Members of Congress have threatened to withhold economic aid to Pakistan over the affair. Carl Levin, a Democrat who heads the powerful Senate armed services committee, reflected scepticism in the US about Bin Laden’s ability to remain hidden in Pakistan. “I think the Pakistani army and intelligence have a lot of questions to answer given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this facility was actually built for Bin Laden and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army,” he told a press conference. The US is expected to step up pressure on Pakistan to hand over the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar and Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, if they are in Pakistan. The death of Bin Laden could also lead to a rethink of the scale of the US involvement in Afghanistan. Embassies, airports and defence bases were placed on high alert for possible retaliation by al-Qaida sympathisers. The Pakistani Taliban threatened attacks against the country’s government and military, and the US. In a phone call to Reuters, a spokesman said: “Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target”. The US embassy and its three consulates in Pakistan were closed to the public until further notice. David Cameron warned of a continuing threat from “extremist terrorism” but hailed a “massive step forward”. The mood in the US was one of celebration as Americans gathered at Ground Zero in New York , pleased finally to have retribution. Obama will visit the site of the World Trade Centre on Thursday to meet the families of those killed in the September 11 attacks. Clinton suggested that US policy on Afghanistan would not shift, but other officials hinted the dynamics may have changed. The Pentagon only wants to see a token force of a few thousand withdrawn beginning in the summer, but Obama may want a more significant reduction. An Afghan government official said he feared Bin Laden’s death would give “justification for US premature disengagement from the region”. It was a view echoed by Ahmed Wali Massoud, an Afghan politician and brother of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary resistance fighter who was assassinated just two days before the September 11 attacks on the orders of Bin Laden. “Already the US has been thinking about shifting its policy on the war on terror and there is a risk that the American public will continue to question why their troops are still fighting there,” he said. One of the most senior US officers serving in Afghanistan, General William Caldwell, told the Guardian the death might encourage moderate elements within the Taliban to give up. John Taylor, whose daughter Carrie, 24, was killed in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, said he would be celebrating. “This is poetic justice for my daughter. This is a little piece of justice for Carrie and the thousands around the world who have been killed as a result of [Bin Laden's] actions.” Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Pakistan United States Global terrorism US national security US foreign policy US military Afghanistan Declan Walsh Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Discovery of audio recorder two days after flight data recorder brings investigators closer to cause of June 2009 crash Search parties scouring the seabed off Brazil’s north-east coast have recovered the second of two flight recorders from the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009, investigators have said. The discovery of the audio recorder, two days after the flight data recorder was fished up, brings investigators even closer to the cause of the crash as it should hold recordings of cockpit conversations during the flight’s final moments. “We can now hope to find out what truly happened within the next three weeks,” the French transport minister, Thierry Mariani, told RTL radio on Tuesday. The investigation team identified the cockpit voice recorder at 9.50pm GMT on Monday , France’s BEA air accident inquiry office said in a statement. The device was hauled up to the team’s ship at 2.40am GMT on Tuesday. A BEA spokeswoman said the black box would be shipped back to France, probably by the end of next week. “The outside appears to be in relatively good shape,” she said, adding that it would only be possible to see if the recorder was “usable” once it was opened, which would not happen until it was back in France. A photograph of the recorder on BEA’s website shows a bright orange cylindrical device that looks scuffed and battered but otherwise intact. So-called black boxes are painted orange so that they can be spotted more easily in wreckage. The Airbus 330-203 airliner plunged into the sea off Brazil en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009 after running into stormy weather, killing all 228 passengers and crew. The discovery of the two flight recorders follows nearly two years of on-off search efforts over a 10,000 sq km area of seabed. Theories about the cause of the disaster have focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft’s speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost. Depending on how much data can be retrieved and how clearly it pinpoints the cause of the crash, lawyers say information from the black boxes could lead to a flood of liability claims. Any fresh conclusions on the cause will also be fed into a judicial probe already under way in which Airbus and Air France have both been placed under formal investigation. Plane crashes Air transport Airbus France guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Discovery of audio recorder two days after flight data recorder brings investigators closer to cause of June 2009 crash Search parties scouring the seabed off Brazil’s north-east coast have recovered the second of two flight recorders from the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009, investigators have said. The discovery of the audio recorder, two days after the flight data recorder was fished up, brings investigators even closer to the cause of the crash as it should hold recordings of cockpit conversations during the flight’s final moments. “We can now hope to find out what truly happened within the next three weeks,” the French transport minister, Thierry Mariani, told RTL radio on Tuesday. The investigation team identified the cockpit voice recorder at 9.50pm GMT on Monday , France’s BEA air accident inquiry office said in a statement. The device was hauled up to the team’s ship at 2.40am GMT on Tuesday. A BEA spokeswoman said the black box would be shipped back to France, probably by the end of next week. “The outside appears to be in relatively good shape,” she said, adding that it would only be possible to see if the recorder was “usable” once it was opened, which would not happen until it was back in France. A photograph of the recorder on BEA’s website shows a bright orange cylindrical device that looks scuffed and battered but otherwise intact. So-called black boxes are painted orange so that they can be spotted more easily in wreckage. The Airbus 330-203 airliner plunged into the sea off Brazil en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009 after running into stormy weather, killing all 228 passengers and crew. The discovery of the two flight recorders follows nearly two years of on-off search efforts over a 10,000 sq km area of seabed. Theories about the cause of the disaster have focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft’s speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost. Depending on how much data can be retrieved and how clearly it pinpoints the cause of the crash, lawyers say information from the black boxes could lead to a flood of liability claims. Any fresh conclusions on the cause will also be fed into a judicial probe already under way in which Airbus and Air France have both been placed under formal investigation. Plane crashes Air transport Airbus France guardian.co.uk
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John Catt, aged 86, has had his presence at peaceful protests systematically logged by secretive police unit over four years An 86-year-old man has been granted permission to launch a lawsuit against police chiefs who have classified him as a “domestic extremist” and kept a detailed record of his political activities on a clandestine database. John Catt, who has no criminal record, is bringing the high court action against a secretive police unit which systematically logged his presence at more than 55 peace and human rights protests over a four-year period. Some of the entries record his habit of taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene at demonstrations. Other entries contain notes on his appearance – such as “clean shaven” – and the slogans on his clothes. His lawsuit will challenge the power of police to compile secret files on law-abiding protesters. A victory for Catt, a pensioner who lives in Brighton, would be a further blow to the police unit, which has been criticised for using undercover officers to infiltrate protest groups. The exposure of spies such as Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years working undercover in the environmental movement, has highlighted the way in which the National Public Order Intelligence Unit has been carrying out surveillance of protesters. The unit has been compiling a huge, nationwide database of thousands of protesters for more than a decade, drawing on intelligence from undercover officers, uniformed surveillance teams, informants in protest groups and covert intercepts. Police claim the unit only monitors so-called “domestic extremists”, whom they define as hardcore activists who commit crime to further their political aims. Catt, a campaigner for many years, is one of the few activists confirmed to be on the database. He says he is “committed to protesting through entirely peaceful means” and told the Guardian he was “shocked and terrified” after he saw the extent of the files held on him. He obtained them using the Data Protection Act. In legal papers, he describes how the files record the political aims of the demonstrations he attended between 2005 and 2009, “highly personalised” information about his appearance and “hearsay evidence and police officers’ opinions”. At a protest against Guantánamo Bay organised by Sussex Action for Peace on 25 September 2005, police noted: “John CATT was seen wearing a Free Omar T-shirt, he was clean shaven … John CATT was very quiet and was holding a board with orange people on it.” At another protest on 10 March 2006, police recorded: “John CATT arrived in his white Citroën Berlingo van. He removed several banners for the protesters to use and at the completion of the demo returned the same to the van. He was using his drawing pad to sketch a picture of the protest and the police presence.” On another occasion he was logged as having “sat on a folding chair and appeared to be sketching” at a demonstration. Police tracked his van after noticing it at demonstrations. He and his daughter Linda were stopped and searched one Sunday morning in London by police who were alerted by a roadside camera recognising the van’s number plate. The pair had been on their way to help a family member move house. Catt, who is represented by the London law firm Fisher Meredith, has been given permission by a high court judge to take legal action against police chiefs, as he claims they have violated his human rights by keeping “excessive and irrelevant” secret files on him. He wants all the entries concerning him to be permanently deleted. Police chiefs say they are legally entitled to maintain files on Catt, who has been taking part in a campaign to close down a Brighton arms factory owned by an American firm, EDO MBM Technology. According to police, the Smash EDO group has organised a “campaign of illegality designed to pressurise EDO to cease its lawful business”, leading to “169 convictions including criminal damage and aggravated trespass, assault and harassment of staff”. The “minor” surveillance of Catt is justified, they say, because his “voluntary association at the Smash EDO protests forms part of a far wider picture of information which it is necessary for the police to continue to monitor in order to plan to maintain the peace, minimise the risks of criminal offending and adequately to detect and prosecute offenders”. Police Human rights Activism Protest Surveillance Rob Evans Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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John Catt, aged 86, has had his presence at peaceful protests systematically logged by secretive police unit over four years An 86-year-old man has been granted permission to launch a lawsuit against police chiefs who have classified him as a “domestic extremist” and kept a detailed record of his political activities on a clandestine database. John Catt, who has no criminal record, is bringing the high court action against a secretive police unit which systematically logged his presence at more than 55 peace and human rights protests over a four-year period. Some of the entries record his habit of taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene at demonstrations. Other entries contain notes on his appearance – such as “clean shaven” – and the slogans on his clothes. His lawsuit will challenge the power of police to compile secret files on law-abiding protesters. A victory for Catt, a pensioner who lives in Brighton, would be a further blow to the police unit, which has been criticised for using undercover officers to infiltrate protest groups. The exposure of spies such as Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years working undercover in the environmental movement, has highlighted the way in which the National Public Order Intelligence Unit has been carrying out surveillance of protesters. The unit has been compiling a huge, nationwide database of thousands of protesters for more than a decade, drawing on intelligence from undercover officers, uniformed surveillance teams, informants in protest groups and covert intercepts. Police claim the unit only monitors so-called “domestic extremists”, whom they define as hardcore activists who commit crime to further their political aims. Catt, a campaigner for many years, is one of the few activists confirmed to be on the database. He says he is “committed to protesting through entirely peaceful means” and told the Guardian he was “shocked and terrified” after he saw the extent of the files held on him. He obtained them using the Data Protection Act. In legal papers, he describes how the files record the political aims of the demonstrations he attended between 2005 and 2009, “highly personalised” information about his appearance and “hearsay evidence and police officers’ opinions”. At a protest against Guantánamo Bay organised by Sussex Action for Peace on 25 September 2005, police noted: “John CATT was seen wearing a Free Omar T-shirt, he was clean shaven … John CATT was very quiet and was holding a board with orange people on it.” At another protest on 10 March 2006, police recorded: “John CATT arrived in his white Citroën Berlingo van. He removed several banners for the protesters to use and at the completion of the demo returned the same to the van. He was using his drawing pad to sketch a picture of the protest and the police presence.” On another occasion he was logged as having “sat on a folding chair and appeared to be sketching” at a demonstration. Police tracked his van after noticing it at demonstrations. He and his daughter Linda were stopped and searched one Sunday morning in London by police who were alerted by a roadside camera recognising the van’s number plate. The pair had been on their way to help a family member move house. Catt, who is represented by the London law firm Fisher Meredith, has been given permission by a high court judge to take legal action against police chiefs, as he claims they have violated his human rights by keeping “excessive and irrelevant” secret files on him. He wants all the entries concerning him to be permanently deleted. Police chiefs say they are legally entitled to maintain files on Catt, who has been taking part in a campaign to close down a Brighton arms factory owned by an American firm, EDO MBM Technology. According to police, the Smash EDO group has organised a “campaign of illegality designed to pressurise EDO to cease its lawful business”, leading to “169 convictions including criminal damage and aggravated trespass, assault and harassment of staff”. The “minor” surveillance of Catt is justified, they say, because his “voluntary association at the Smash EDO protests forms part of a far wider picture of information which it is necessary for the police to continue to monitor in order to plan to maintain the peace, minimise the risks of criminal offending and adequately to detect and prosecute offenders”. Police Human rights Activism Protest Surveillance Rob Evans Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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