We have been reading and trying to understand exactly what powers the NET bailiffs have in terms of evicting us from HS2 land. This still needs some clarification– there are some areas where we think they may be overstepping their powers. We could use some support in understanding the legal aspects better.

So on Tuesday we had been photographing and watching two birds nests, one was blue tit and the other a possible tree creeper. HS2 security then came in with the bailiffs. Security forced the people that were sitting there very peacefully filming about 8 feet back to where we couldn’t see the birds. They literally grabbed and dragged them back. They tried to move in fences so that we would no longer be able to film the nests. But lots of people came out to hold back the fences. We resisted for about 3 hours and it was mostly peaceful on our part.

We have video footage showing some extreme violence by the NET bailiffs, which you can find below. We said we were going to leave and they arrested 7 of us, later de-arresting 2 of those. They were all charged under section 10– stopping a bailiff from executing his duty of establishing the area as safe by using his writ. Only one of the arrestees has been released and returned back to camp tonight.

So yeah, there were 5 arrests but we considered it a good day. We were pleased that we managed to keep things peaceful, even in the face of some horrible violence. We managed to hold our area for about 4 hours, and we kept the fences from being relocated, so we considered it a victory. In the evening we celebrated a little bit.