Forget burglaries and violent crime – police send up to 50 officers to stop knitting circle!
AS protests go it was hardly a riot – just a knitting circle of a dozen pensioners sitting at the entrance to a controversial fracking site.
But police were accused of heavy-handedness after officers – said by activists to be as many as 50 – moved in to evict them.
Demonstrators chanted ‘shame on you’ as yellow-jacketed officers used knives to cut through yarn so that water tankers could leave the site near a village in lancashire. Regular protests from environmental campaigners and a group of local grandmothers known as the ‘lancashire Nanas’ have cost almost £7million to police since January last year.
Sharm Honey, who travelled from Scotland to take part in the protest last week and filmed the eviction, claimed the police presence was excessive. She said: ‘We were having a lovely afternoon and they’ve decided to come along and decided we can’t sit here and crochet. They are just stopping a circle of women knitting. It’s ridiculous. This is the amount of police it takes to move a knitting circle. I’d say at least 50.’
In response to her film, Sara Peel said on Facebook: ‘There’s less coppers at a football game.’
lancashire Police said around 100 officers are directly involved in policing the fracking operation.
A spokesman said: ‘ Public safety is our main priority and having this number of officers available is essential to ensure all parties remain safe.’
The force said police had asked the women to move ‘several times’ before evicting them, adding that officers had a duty to balance the right to peaceful protest with the needs of local firms to go about their business.
lancashire County Council rejected test drilling for shale gas at Preston New Road near the village of little Plumpton in 2015 but energy firm Cuadrilla successfully appealed to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.
Actress Emma Thompson took part in a protest march at the site last month.
Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Environmental campaigners claim the process could contaminate groundwater and release potentially carcinogenic chemicals.
last September the Daily Mail told how up to 50 police officers at a time were dealing with a few dozen fracking protesters, many of them pensioners, who passed the time drinking tea and occasionally singing at Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire.
North Yorkshire Police faced accusations of a ‘disproportionate’ show of strength but insisted they were acting responsibly.