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On June 30th protesters at AWE Burghfield will hang ‘red crosses’ on the perimeter fence – temporarily. These will be made of fabric and can quickly and easily be taken down. Also people will probably hang paper or card things on the fence – temporarily, so in view of the MoD police attempts to deter people from putting things on the fence by using military byelaws, the part of the byelaws they may misuse when speaking to protesters is explained by our ‘Military Byelaws advisor’….
“The law:
The MOD have bylaws in place giving them certain powers & creating certain offences.
You can view these at:
The relevant ones for putting things on the fence are not to:
7 (d) interfere with, or obstruct the use of, any property which is under the control of the Crown, or the service authorities of a visiting force or in either case its agents or contractors;
7 (n) deface any sign, wall, fence, structure or other surface;
NB the MOD do not have any byelaw against attaching things to the fence etc – hence they are attempting to use the 7 (d) & (n) byelaws to do what they want, while not actually having a legal power to do – putting things on the fence!
This month the MOD police have asked anyone they see putting anything on the fence to take it down.
If you refuse they may take your details under caution so as to be able to bring you to court to answer the charge under summons prosecution.
In other words you will not be arrested or immediately charged; but you may have to come to court to answer the case if they decide to go ahead with a prosecution. However, it is possible that they will not want to proceed with byelaws cases even after taking our names and details as there will be so many of us and we are likely to win the arguments in court.
They use various reasons for using the 7(n) byelaw of defacing the fence – eg it is alarmed & putting banners up sets off the alarm! This still does not tally with “defacing”, but it’s the one they’ve used to date….!!
Have a lovely time!!!”