Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

Matilda in Court: some feedback from the case

Alex | 23.06.2006 23:24 | Culture | Free Spaces | Social Struggles | Sheffield

On Thursday 22nd June Yorkshire Forward took 30 persons unknown who had established a social centre in 111 Matilda Street to the County Court for Trespass. In hearing the case you actually dared to hope at one point that there might be some kind of outcome in Matilda's favour. But as ever the judge sided with the property owners regardless of the arguments put forward and legal technicalities raised. I wasn't able to get notes down of all the arguments made, but hopefully the bits I can recall will give you a small flavour of the case.


It started on what felt like dodgy footing when the judge confessed he hadn't been able to consult relevant reference books for the case. The Yorkshire Forward solicitor (helpfully!) gave the magistrate a copy of a past case as a reference. But things looked up when examining the arguments put forward by Yorkshire Forward and in particular the muddle surrounding the terms they were trying to access the building in the previous week and the fact that a representative from Yorkshire Forward handed a key handed over a key to Matilda people. He seemed to focus for a time on the access to the rest of the building for the tenant, Adrenalin Studios, and the implications of this for the case.

As to be expected Yorkshire Foward's central argument resorted to evicting the Trespassers for reasons of Health and Safety, which did not seem to square with their intention to let the current tenant, Adrenalin Studios, remain in the building. However they argued that they will be building a corridor to to the studios, to prevent access to the rest of the building. Yorkshire Forward refused to acknowledge the work that had been done on Matilda by the collective to make the building safer, such as repairing loose windows.

The judge refused to explore issues around the legality of the ownership of the building and was content for this case that Yorkshire Forward were the owners of the building. However he accepted Matilda's point that legal approach taken by Yorkshire Forward was not the right way to proceed. Things at this point were looking hopeful and it continued to be as the judge start to sum up, but then he simply declared that people should not be in the Matilda Street building and that was it, they had to go.

It was great that people had turned out to support those representing the Matilda collective in court, and about ten of us accompanied the representatives in court.

Alex

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Legal bits...

24.06.2006 12:23

Alex be careful with this sort of report, you should not under any circumstance report anything which has not directly been said in court (you should be able to quote verbatim from your notes at the very least) which could bring it into disrepute, or you (and Indymedia) could get in a lot of trouble.

Concerned


Nothing to worry about here...

24.06.2006 17:44

I think Concerned is overreacting. It is not the intention of the contempt laws to stifle criticism of the court or any judge's decision, and I can see nothing in this report to worry about.

I was amused to see that costs were awarded against 'Persons Unknown'. Whilst it's quite possible to evict 'Persons Unknown' from the building, collecting your costs might be a bit more tricky. I hope that those who stood up to represent the Matilda Collective havn't made themselves liable for those costs.

The outcome was of course inevitable and the law is quite clear. Squatted space will always be precarious in nature and I think the future for the social centre movement can only be in legally occupied (donated or rented) space. At least YF have chosen to use the legal process and to allow those present time to remove their posessions rather than resorting to illegal force (which might have been cheaper) to clear the building.

RVR800


Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech