Dog Sh*t on the lawn
1987
In February 1987 “We held a protest march in Wombourne which staggered the local community; attended by 300 people. The Police filmed the whole event, everyone was photographed, definitely overkill! In the end all the charges were dropped, the Chair of the bench trying the case denied knowing the Leader of the Council even though they lived in the same street and must have worked in the same circles. It was pretty much common knowledge that Norman and Betty Webb who owned the Silver Web and also lived in Wombourne, had collected their two boxes of dog shit for a fortnight and dumped it on the Leader of the Council’s doorstep and also stole a water feature from his garden which they auctioned off to raise money for the cause. I believe ultimately, a number of the twelve sued the Staffordshire Police and were awarded something like £70K in compensation for false imprisonment and wrongful arrest!”
“The police in Wombourne had a reputation as being incredibly backwards; the year before they’d brought a man to trial in Wolverhampton who was HIV+ and had worn space suits to bring him into court. The Magistrate had the sense to stop the trial there and then and say that this man can’t expect a fair trial while he’s being treated like this. The year after the protests, the police put out a leaflet asking for a sighting of any black people to be reported to them as there’d been a robbery recently!”
Contributed by: Lyn David Thomas, 47