Right to Challenge the Cuts Campaign celebrates

Supporters reclaim placards from Market Street Police Station as charges are dropped

Today was an occasion to celebrate a victory for free speech, and to thank all those who have offered solidarity and support over the last few months – charges against Don had been dropped. 

Don and campaign supporters attended Market Street Police Station, Newcastle, this morning to reclaim placards confiscated by police.

Don, a youth worker, was arrested on February 16th after he attended Newcastle’s largest anti-cuts demonstration. At the end of the event, he approached the Labour leader, Nick Forbes, holding a placard, and told him that he thought he had sold out the city. Six hours later, at 10 o’clock at night, police descended on Don’s home and arrested him.  You can read Don’s statement here.

Don was offered a fixed penalty notice for threatening behaviour but refused to accept the charge, as he simply told Nick Forbes what he and many other people think about the £100 million worth of cuts. The charge has now been dropped.

The case has raised the profile of the issues of the right to free speech and the right to challenge the cuts, with the campaign slogan being ‘If it could happen to Don, it could happen to anyone’.

The Right to Challenge the Cuts Campaign will continue to support others facing similar injustices.

There are local groups all over Newcastle and beyond working to challenge cuts and to defend the services communities need. You can contact your local group to find out more.

Big Shout Out for Free Speech! Friday 3 May

This Friday, 3 May 2013, please come along to mark a victory for the Right to Challenge the Cuts Campaign.  

Thanks to your help and support, the campaign now has cause to celebrate – charges against Don have been dropped!  

Don, a Newcastle-based youth worker, was arrested on February 16th after he attended Newcastle’s largest anti-cuts demonstration. At the end of the event, he approached the Labour leader, Nick Forbes, holding a placard, and told him that he thought he had sold out the city. Six hours later, at 10 o’clock at night, police descended on Don’s home and arrested him.  

Don was offered a fixed penalty notice for threatening behaviour but refused to accept the charge, as he simply told Nick Forbes what he and many other people think about the £100 million worth of cuts.  

The case has raised the profile of the issues of the right to free speech and the right to challenge the cuts, with the campaign slogan being ‘If it could happen to Don, it could happen to anyone’.  

Phil, a Newcastle based advice worker, said: “Fixed penalty notices are increasingly being used by the police to circumnavigate the courts but people do not have to accept them and should always seek advice’.  

Don said: “I am glad that I chose to return the Fixed Penalty Notice and refuse to pay the fine. Many people have supported the campaign and that helped me to take a stand. The support has given me faith in humanity and has made me more determined to carry on fighting the cuts.”  

The Right to Challenge the Cuts Campaign will continue to support others facing similar injustices.  

Join the Campaign this Friday 3 May at 9.30am, outside Market Street Police Station, where Don will be collecting the placard and banners that were part of the case.  

If you need information or advice, see the ‘links’ section on this page, or get in touch.

Don’t Cut Free Speech!

The Right to Challenge the Cuts Campaign stand up for freedom of speech, Saturday 23 March 2013.

Photo by MR Swan Photography.

Press Release 23 March 2013 –

A campaign and petition to demand accusations be dropped against Newcastle youth work
Michael MacDonald following his arrest by police late one night in February under
Section Five of The Public Order Act is announced. The arrest followed a peaceful
encounter between MacDonald and labour Councillor Nick Forbes earlier the same day.

Forbes called the police after MacDonald, known by friends and colleagues as ‘Don’,
approached the councillor in the street to express his concern at the sweeping cuts
the Labour council were imposing on the city. MacDonald denies the accusations against
him.

More details about the campaign and petiton, which has already attracted over
800 signatures, are available at http://defencecampaign.wordpress.com/about/

Campaigners see the arrest as a worrying development in the use of police tactics to
curtail freedom of speech. The campaign highlights the fact that Don is a ordinary
man, a member of the community and a loving father. ‘If It Can Happen To Don, It Can
Happen To Anyone’ is the campaign slogan.

The launch comes after the news of a disability campaigner, fined £1000 in Oxfordshire for the same offence.
ENDS

‘If it can happen to Don, it can happen to anyone’ campaign launch

Press Release 16 March 2013

A campaign has been launched to defend a youth worker who was arrested and taken from his home by Newcastle police late at night, following an earlier incident involving Nick Forbes, the Labour councillor who spearheaded sweeping cuts to Newcastle’s public services.

Father of a six-year-old, Michael MacDonald, 34, of Benwell, was arrested around 10:15pm on February 16th and held more than four hours in police custody. At the time of the arrest, MacDonald, know by friends and colleagues as ‘Don’, was the sole adult in charge of his young son.

Project Manager, Michael Bell of Patchwork, a youth project worker that has been delivering services to the community of Benwell for over a decade said of MacDonald, “He is a peaceful man and a great role-model for the children he works with. Don is well-loved by the kids and is respected throughout the community services of the city.”

‘If it can happen to Don, it can happen to anyone’, is the slogan of campaign.
This has been set up to raise public awareness of what campaign co-ordinator Stuart Robertson describes as “an abuse of power by those in authority on a hard-working family man”.

A petition, demanding all accusations against the youth worker are dropped, has received over 630 signatures so far, including John McDonnell, a Labour MP in Middlesex. It’s not certain if any Newcastle MPs will add their name to the growing petition defending the Benwell community worker.

Labour Councillor, Forbes contacted the police after reportedly feeling threatened by ‘Don’ MacDonald. Forbes has not brought forward any evidence or witness statement alleging violence by Mr MacDonald. MacDonald was issued with a fixed penalty notice for alledgedly ‘causing harassment, alarm or distress under section five of the Public Order Act. He denies all accusations against him, and has returned the notice, saying he will challenge the alleged claim against him and the police action in court.

More details of the campaign and petition can be found at the website http://defencecampaign.wordpress.com/

ENDS

E-petition now online – click to sign

Defend the right to challenge the cuts

To: Newcastle City Council

We call on the council to demand:

All accusations against Mr Michael (Don) MacDonald related to this incident are dropped.

To publicly defend the right to free speech for the residents of Newcastle.

Click here to sign:

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/defend-the-right-to-challenge-the-cuts

Community organisations come together to defend free speech

Press Release 7 March 2013

The different community organisation that are opposing the budget cuts to services
have come together in as an estimated 4,000 strong group to defend a youth worker
after he was taken from his home by police at about 10:15pm on February 16th and
held more than four hours before being issued with a fixed-penalty notice for alledgedly
‘causing harassment, alarm or distress’ under section five of the Public Order Act.

Michael McDonald, 34, of Benwell, was arrested late at night whilst looking after
his six year old son. The arrest followed an incident earlier in the day when
McDonald, know by friends and colleagues as ‘Don’, engaged with Nick Forbes, the the
Labour Council leader, in the street. Don wanted to discuss with Forbes, the
effects of the cuts to Newcastle’s youth services, which the youth worker fears will
have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable residents of the city.

“All I wanted to do was express my concerns directly to the man who is spearheading
these sweeping cuts,” McDonald stated. “Forbes has kept a deliberate low-profile
during the consultation process; attending very few of the public meetings, but
preferring to hide behind a video camera. Meeting him in the street was a rare
opportunity I didn’t want to miss. I was not threatening to him. I didn’t swear. I
only tried to explain to him, as a professional youth worker, the effects these cuts
would have on the city’s services.”

McDonald denies all accusations against him, and has returned the fixed penalty notice,
saying he will challenge the alleged accusations and the police action in court.

Project Manager, Michael Bell of Patchwork, a well respected youth project that has
been delivering services to the community of Benwell for over a decade said of
McDonald “He is a peaceful man and a great role-model for the children he works
with. Don is well-loved by the kids and is respected throughout the community
services of the city.”

Following comments about McDonald made by Labour Councillors in the civic centre
meeting last night before voting through the cuts that are of deep concern to many
of Newcastle’s residents, the resolve of the ‘Defend Don’ group has strengthened.
A petition will be put online demanding the charges against McDonald are dropped and
that the council actively support freedom of speech for Newcastle’s residents.

“The Labour council are being very irresponsible by causing a rift between the
council and the community workers,” says Gari Sullivan from Artists Against Cuts.
“The community workers are the very people the council will need to work with in
order to salvage something from these destructive attacks on our public services.

Send in your solidarity message

If you would like to add a message of solidarity, you can send it in to defence.campaign[@]gmail.com.

Alexandra M, Manchester Activist:
This statement is written in solidarity with Don MacDonald of IDYW/SOS Tyneside and in reaction to the equally laughable and damaging accusations against him by Council Leader Nick Forbes.

Nick Forbes has exposed himself as an enemy of the people of Newcastle, once and for all. That he chose to target a known anti-cuts campaigner and front line services worker is cynical and malicious at best. The intangible nature of an accusation under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, makes it very convenient for a traitorous public figure like Nick Forbes to silence the community voices that challenge him, particularly at a time when the local media seem to be touting him as the city’s hero. How Don MacDonald can be fined for saying directly to Nick Forbes what 1,500 Newcastle residents had been saying en masse only minutes before or showing him the placards that those same people had been carrying all day without incident, is outrageous in the extreme. Council Leaders and politicians who implement these utterly degrading cuts should be expected to give comprehensive response to any verbal challenge that they may receive. Where Labour Council Leaders act as agents of the Con-Dem Coalition, they should expect challenge and have ready responses all the more. “There are difficult decisions to make” is not sufficient explanation or justification for the mutilation and eradication of vital services. These are the people we PAY and they must work for us or be prepared for the voices that defy them. Furthermore, Nick Forbes has wasted already stretched public funding in order to make an example of Don MacDonald and nurse his bruised ego.

However, the use of these sorts of flimsy accusations is not a new occurrence but it is very efficient at intimidating activists and breaking them with mental, physical and financial exhaustion. The manner in which the police removed Don MacDonald from him home late at night after a long day of community protest, without particular concern for the welfare of his child and refusing to revert to a more accommodating time is testament to this. Further, there is no doubt that he was pressured by circumstance into accepting the penalty in order to get the incident over quickly and return to his child. Considering all of this on top of any residual damage done to his reputation or his employability as a result of council, police and media mishandling and sensationalist misrepresentation, I daresay Don MacDonald has fairly solid grounds to his bring his own disupute against Nick Forbes. Indeed, the only thing more insulting, alarming, distressing than Don MacDonald’s treatment are the cuts themselves. This is a massive violation of his privacy, his home and his civil liberties on top of the jeopardy in which the police potentially placed his child’s welfare.

This is a warning-shot to activists across the nation, not just in Newcastle. This could have been any of us and without challenge soon this will be all of us – plucked from our houses in the night by the authorities on trifling accusations of a non-criminal nature  simply for exercising our freedom of expression and fighting to keep what the community already owns.

I am pleased to hear that Don will be challenging this and has returned the penalty notice. I hope that anti-cuts activists and groups will take this campaign up with enthusiasm.

In solidarity,

Alexandra M

Manchester Activist