Camp Titnore birthday protest!

CAMP TITNORE, the eco-protest site near Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is cel­e­brat­ing its sec­ond birth­day on Sat­ur­day May 24.

To mark the occa­sion, a par­ty is being held on the steps of Wor­thing Town Hall in Chapel Road.

CAMP TITNORE, the eco-protest site near Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is cel­e­brat­ing its sec­ond birth­day on Sat­ur­day May 24.

To mark the occa­sion, a par­ty is being held on the steps of Wor­thing Town Hall in Chapel Road.

The event has been giv­en added poignan­cy by scenes at the recent elec­tion count, when heavy-hand­ed secu­ri­ty and police threw out Save Tit­nore Woods! can­di­date Dawn Smith and her sup­port­ers.

Cam­paign­ers are invit­ing any­one who sup­ports the camp and the wider cam­paign to turn up in par­ty mode — with hats, bal­loons, cake and music. One said: “The cam­paign has, of course, being going a lot more than two years, but the extra­or­di­nary achieve­ment of those who have kept alive a con­tin­ued pres­ence in the woods since May 2006 just can­not be over-empha­sised.

“Not every one is able to get down to the camp to express their sup­port, so this event in the town cen­tre is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to show the pro­test­ers you are with them in spir­it.

“Let’s make a real effort to cel­e­brate in style and com­mu­ni­cate our ongo­ing deter­mi­na­tion to see off this threat to Wor­thing’s envi­ron­men­tal her­itage!”

The inci­dent at the count hap­pened on Fri­day May 2, when Dawn, who was stand­ing for the Stop Dur­ring­ton’s Overde­vel­op­ment — Save Tit­nore’s Trees par­ty, in the bor­ough’s North­brook ward, was arrest­ed after a row at Wor­thing’s Assem­bly Hall, appar­ent­ly for “dis­or­der­ly behav­iour”.

She was thrown to the ground by police, held down with her hands behind her back, knelt on and hand­cuffed, then held for four hours at Dur­ring­ton police sta­tion — all for object­ing to her sup­port­ers being vio­lent­ly eject­ed from the count.

Dawn, who has not been charged, explained that there was con­fu­sion over the pass­es for her guests at the count, who includ­ed Tit­nore eco-campers. Names she had reg­is­tered did not seem to have been record­ed, in an offi­cial bun­gle.

Oth­er peo­ple, con­sid­ered of “respectable” appear­ance, were waved through by secu­ri­ty but they demand­ed ID from her sup­port­ers.

While she went to try and sort the error, some of the campers wan­dered through into the hall and were attacked and phys­i­cal­ly thrown out by secu­ri­ty staff in what she called a “com­plete over-reac­tion”.

Dawn object­ed vocal­ly. She said: “I shout­ed at them. The only rea­son they did this was because the guys had dread­locks. I’m not going to stand by and see some­one jumped on.”