Green Assembly Member and working Peer Jenny Jones has spoken of the “pathetic” file the Metropolitan Police kept on her, as she gave support to a pensioner who is now facing a Supreme Court battle to keep his details out of domestic extremist database.
The London Green Party responded to news of a fresh appeal by the police by circulating this graphic on social media sites
John Catt, a life long campaigner and talented artist, was told by three senior Court of Appeal judges in 2013 that the file kept on his activities at legal peace protests between 2005-9 were a violation of his human rights and should be deleted. The Met have recently confirmed that they are appealing the decision in the Supreme Court.
Jenny has signed a witness statement to be used in the upcoming lawsuit and has given her backing to the 89 year old Brightoner, writing in the Guardian that “when the police’s work on domestic extremism involves spying on elected politicians and artistic pensioners, they have lost sight of what they are there to do.”
Writing of her discovery that the Met Police kept a file on her activities as part of counter terrorism work, she said: “I would describe myself as many things, but domestic extremist is not one of them. As an elected politician who has never been arrested, I was naturally surprised to find I even had a file on this database. “
Jenny obtained her file last year using data protection legislation, requiring her to fill in a large form and pay £10. In her article she said of its contents:
“I don’t know what I expected to find, but the three pages can only be described as pathetic. Quite honestly, I want my money back.
“Flicking through the file I was able to read copies of tweets I had made, a note that I was speaking at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square – even something saying I was the Green party mayoral candidate for London and was worried that I might be kettled on a protest. Most of the information came from public sources. How could it in any way be seen as useful intelligence? This was a complete waste of police time and resources.
“At first I found it amusing that the information held on me was so pointless. However, my file and this database should be seen in the wider context of police surveillance against activists. At one end of the spectrum is the collection of publicly available trivia about an elected representative; at the other are the undercover police being sent to spy on a grieving family, and into the homes, lives and beds of women.”