June 10, 2008

Denby villagers fear violent clashes as British National Party sets up camp

A village renowned for its pottery is trying to avoid becoming the permanent venue of the British National Party's summer gathering.

Residents of Denby, in Derbyshire, home of glazed china tableware and kitchen utensils for two centuries, fear violent clashes as the police try to prevent anti-fascists stopping the Red, White and Blue Festival. They say that last year's inaugural event involved skinheads with vicious dogs descending on the Derbyshire countryside playing tapes of martial tunes from the Third Reich.

Judith Osborne, a farmer's wife who lives next door to the festival site, said: “I always say when you join the BNP they give you a rottweiler puppy and a red and white flag as a starter, because they all come with a flag and they all have these big snarling dogs.”

Derbyshire police say that they have no objections to the festival but want conditions imposed, including restricting entry to BNP members and their guests. The party's website was offering membership last night for £15, with cards delivered in three weeks.

Mrs Osborne, in her seventies, wept as she recalled one summer night before last year's festival. Supporters were already camping on the fields preparing for the event and she realised that they were playing recorded music and joining in. “I heard them and I realised what they were singing,” she said. “They were Nazi marching songs. I'm sorry, I'm old enough to remember the war and those songs and that's awful, that's just awful listening to that. They were laughing and shouting and I just couldn't cope.”

Her neighbour, Alan Warner, a landowner and BNP member who is hosting the event, said that the suggestion was untrue. “They would be chucked off the site. We are not Nazis. We are just the opposite,” he said.

The Red, White and Blue Festival will welcome up to 5,000 BNP sympathisers on 34 acres of fields from August 15 to 17 with a big wheel, dodgems, waltzers and a firework display. There will be drinking until 2am.

Last year villagers persuaded anti-BNP supporters to stay away to avoid disrupting their tranquillity any more than the revellers were already doing, but this time a concerted offensive has begun to disrupt the festival, with a planned day of mass action.

Villagers fear that the “Stop the Red, White and Blue” campaign will attract thousands of protesters, requiring an extensive police presence to prevent civil disorder.

The BNP needs a licence because it wants to serve alcohol and offer live music. Amber Valley Borough Council's licensing panel meets today to consider the party's application. Anti-fascist groups have had their objections rejected because they live outside the area. A council spokeswoman said: “Mr Warner can hold the event on his premises anyway. We are only looking at licenseable activities, for example alcohol and live music, and the impact that could have on the local community. Any objections to the fact that the event is taking place at all cannot be classed as valid representations. It is not a political decision as such.”

Noise abatement notices were served on the organisers last year and this time the council promises round-the-clock monitoring. Police said that there had been no trouble last year.

A Derbyshire police spokeswoman said: “We will police it according to the way it will need to be policed but obviously we will be monitoring the situation if and when it goes ahead.”

Times Online

16 comments:

  1. “I heard them and I realised what they were singing,” she said. “They were Nazi marching songs. I'm sorry, I'm old enough to remember the war and those songs and that's awful, that's just awful listening to that. They were laughing and shouting and I just couldn't cope.”

    Not fucking Nazis then. The BNP are filth and should all be banged up.

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  2. I'd suggest anyone who goes takes cameras and/or video camera and sents them straight to lancaster Unity so they can do one of their fine live reporting events for the day.

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  3. "The party's website was offering membership last night for £15, with cards delivered in three weeks."

    Cute price membership for a third rate party. It fits. It also shows how desperate they are for the RWB to be a "success" because they know that this time there will be witnesses aplenty.

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  4. Cute price? I meant of course, cut price.

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  5. Does this failed bomber have links to the BNP?

    Right-wing bomb-maker 'not a terrorist'

    10 June, 2008

    A "sad loner" who blew off his own fingers with a home-made bomb has been jailed for seven years.

    Farmer's son Owen Dodds hoarded right-wing paraphernalia in the bedroom he had turned into a mini-munitions factory at his parents' home.

    Police who raided the remote farmhouse in Elsdon, Northumberland, feared the 29-year-old was part of a terrorist sleeper cell when they discovered pipe bombs, high explosives and a deadly home-made pistol.
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    But Dodds, who had previous convictions for violence and had been banned for life from possessing firearms or ammunition, was "immature, lonely, isolated, and bored" and not a terrorist, a Judge at Newcastle Crown Court heard.

    Dodds was badly hurt when a home-made pipe bomb he was building in his bedroom exploded when he was home alone at Ravenscleugh Farm, near the Otterburn British Army Training Range on January 2.

    The improvised weapon, which was packed with lethal home-made high explosive and metal fragments, went off by accident and blew off Dodd's left thumb and the tips of his left index and middle fingers.

    His chest bleeding from more than 50 shrapnel wounds, Dodds staggered down the stairs and dialled 999 to ask for an air ambulance.

    When police arrived they searched the house and found in Dodd's bedroom bomb-making equipment including potassium nitrate fertiliser, hydrogen peroxide, sulphuric acid, shotgun cartridges, metal pipes and rusty nails, and a carton of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) - a high explosive which has been used in several suicide bombings around the world.

    Army explosives experts were called in and discovered a cache of weapons including a fully loaded home-made pistol, pyrotechnic fuses, a "rocket" pipe bomb hidden in a bin close to a barn, a home-made bomb timer, and an ignition switch made from a clothes peg modified with plastic and drawing pins.

    Stuart Baker, prosecuting, said Dodds' bedroom and his desktop computer was filled with bomb-making guides and neo-Nazi music, flags, and literature, Dodds, who was taken to Newcastle General Hospital, claimed he had been injured when a camping stove exploded.

    He later admitted 12 counts of making and possessing improvised explosive devices, one count of manufacturing a firearm and one count of possessing ammunition when prohibited.

    Mitigating, Paul Caulfield said Dodds was an "unsophisticated" man who had learned his lesson.

    "He is the last person who would have any connection with any organisation that could pose a threat to people's safety or to society.

    "He is an immature, childish, lonely, naive, isolated and bored man, living largely in the middle of nowhere, who had an unusual fascination with explosive devices.

    "He manufactured these explosive devices and from time to time would set them off in areas where there was no livestock.

    "The lessons of that day will be with him for the rest of his life. You could say he has had his fingers burned."

    Sentencing, Judge David Hodson said: "People were put at risk because you failed to say how explosive some of the substances were.

    "You created quite deliberately a number of life-threatening situations for a number of people and you must be punished for what you did."

    For each offence of making or possession an explosive, Dodds was jailed for two years concurrently.

    He was jailed for five years for manufacturing the firearm, to run consecutive to the two-year-concurrent sentences, and for one year for possessing ammunition when prohibited, to run concurrent.

    Judge Hodson said he could have jailed Dodds for up to 14 years for manufacturing the firearm.

    Speaking after the sentence, Dodds' father Larry, 60, said he would stand by his son.

    "The bomb went off when we were on our way back to the farmhouse," he said.

    "When we got in there was blood for evermore. God knows what he was doing.

    "Then the Army evacuated the farmhouse and we had to move out while they searched the land.

    "This has been the last straw for me; we've been there 15 years but I've had to sell up and have retired from farming.

    "Owen just could not cope with the life - the activity, then the long period when there was not much going on.

    "But I'll wait for him to get out and when he does I'll be there for him. I'll buy him a house."

    By Hugh Macknight

    http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/latest/display.var.2330804.0.rightwing_bombmaker_not_a_terrorist.php

    ReplyDelete
  6. From:

    http://weloveleebarnes.blogspot.com:

    ‘The Lee Barnes (LLB Hons) Care Unit’

    Support our campaign to re-name the ‘Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit’ at Little Brook Hospital, Dartford in honour of its most famous son, Lee Barnes (LLB Hons), Director of the BNP Legal Department.

    Our campaign has been inspired by Lee Barnes (LLB Hons)’s latest blog entry on 20th May 2008, entitled The (inter)National Health Service. In this stupendous article, Lee Barnes (LLB Hons), and we’re grateful to him for this, draws our attention to his very own predicament - that the presence of immigrants in the UK:

    “threatens the public health and is also diverting resources away from UK citizens who are entitled to use the NHS through their National Insurance contributions”

    Barring Lee Barnes (LLB Hons)’s own lack of National Insurance contributions to the upkeep of the NHS combined with his disproportionate and frequent use of Medway’s excellent and free medical services, the impact of psychosis inducing immigrants reveals the saliency of our campaign.

    The Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at the Willow Suite of Medway’s Little Brook Hospital does a sterling job. It is here that patients who are in an acutely disturbed phase of a serious mental health disorder are detained for their own safety as well as that of the wider public.

    So, watch this space for more details on our campaign to urge Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust to re-name Little Brook Hospital’s Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit in honour of Lee Barnes (LLB Hons).

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  7. Hello everyone

    I have been away for a while thanks to the birth of my wonderful new son.

    Below is a reminder of last years
    car boot sales with flags

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYgco7Kq1rk

    See you all soon

    another donation is on the way.

    You chaps are the feckin best !!

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  8. "Derbyshire police say that they have no objections to the festival but want conditions imposed, including restricting entry to BNP members and their guests."

    How is that a restriction? Surely that's how it always is?

    ReplyDelete
  9. This from the Belper News site,

    Police object to BNP event

    Published Date:
    11 June 2008
    By Sarah Bould
    Police have objected to a controversial BNP festival at the 11th hour.
    But despite the move, organisers of the Red, White and Blue Festival have vowed the Denby event will go ahead.

    The festival, organised by the British National Party, has also met with objections from town councillors.

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    An application to have livADVERTISEMENT
    e
    music and serve alcohol at the festival to be held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 15, 16 and 17 has been submitted to Amber Valley Borough Council.

    But now police have voiced concerns after the deadline for objections on the grounds of public safety.

    A spokeswoman said officers had received intelligence and the objection was aimed at preventing crime and disorder and to ensure public safety.

    She said: "We were working with the organisers, but intelligence as it stands means we the police have a duty to bring matters to the attention of the panel so they can decide whether to grant a licence or not."

    There were four points raised by police in their objection. The other two were to prevent a public nuisance and to protect children.

    The annual event was held on land owned by former BNP councillor Alan Warner at Codnor Denby Lane, for the first time in July last year.

    Mr Warner said the event would go ahead regardless of whether it was granted a music and alcohol licence.

    He said: "The police are objecting to it on grounds of public safety. I don't know what's wrong with people. We are not racist we just want what's best for this country."

    Heanor Town Council has also objected to the event. Speaking at the latest meeting, Cllr Bob Moon said: "Last year there was a lot of noise coming from the site, before and after the event with people making a lot of noise late into the night."

    A decision on whether to allow live music and alcohol at the event was due to be made last night.

    A spokeswoman for Amber Valley Borough Council said the police would need to explain why the licensing panel should consider its objection to the festival at this late stage.

    She said: "It is then up to the licensing panel to decide whether to accept the police's representations."

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  10. 'I have been away for a while thanks to the birth of my wonderful new son.'

    Excellent news! Congrats to all of you. Hope Mum and sprog are doing fine. :-)

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  11. Great news Tony. Congratulations to the whole family. Now go get sloshed.

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  12. Blimey, a new anti-fascist. Good news Tony. Congratulations. :)

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  13. Congratulations IrishTony!
    Hope all is great with mother and child and hope it wasn't too stressfull for you:))

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  14. I hope it goes ahead so any nazi fetish behaviour is recorded on camera, as will be any mark collett-style paedophilia, barnbrook-style drunkeness, and skinhead thuggery, so the press can have a f*cking fieldday.

    lol

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  15. Are you ever going to update the Crap Councillor's page Ketlan?

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  16. Congratulations irishtony, hope all are well, no time for choccy biscuits now...

    tulip

    ReplyDelete