All 114 power station protesters released as arrests spark civil liberties row

Police have released all 114 environmental protesters arrested for allegedly planning to sabotage one of Britain's biggest power stations.



They had been questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass and criminal damage. All the protesters have been released on bail.

Scores of officers in 20 vans descended on a private primary school and nursery in the early hours of Easter Monday where demonstrators had gathered ahead of what police believed was a planned mass attack on Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire.

Detectives recovered specialist equipment including bolt cutters and locks which they said suggested the group represented a 'serious threat' to the safe running of the coal-fired station, which protesters say is Britain's second-largest producer of carbon-dioxide emissions.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station, near Nottingham, was believed to be the target of the protest

A police officer stands guard outside the school where the protesters were arrested

In all, 114 men and women from across the UK were detained in the joint operation by Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire forces.

A spokeswoman said: 'Police have gathered a large amount of evidence which they are now reviewing.

'From the information gathered, police believe that those arrested were planning a period of prolonged disruption to the safe running of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.'

Police dog handlers and other officers moved in on the protesters at the Iona School, in Sneinton, Nottingham. They have now all been released on bail

The police crackdown before a demonstration has taken place has sparked fears among civil liberties campaigners.



The power station arrests come less than two weeks after police raided 'squats' suspected of being used by protesters on the second day of the G20 summit in London before demonstrations had actually been held that day.

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Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'In the light of the policing of the G20 protests, people up and down the country will want to be confident that there was evidence of a real conspiracy to commit criminal damage by those arrested and that this was not just an attempt by the police to disrupt perfectly legitimate protest.'

It is thought the protests were linked to plans for a new coal-fired power-station in Kingsthorpe, Kent, by E.on, which also runs the Ratcliffe-on-Soar station.

Witnesses saw the group being rounded up at the Iona School in Sneinton, Nottingham, one of only 30 Steiner schools in the UK.

Earlier this month officers arrested people in a London squat before a planned G20 demonstration Steiner schools controversially advocate freeing children from a rigid educational programme, with spiritual and emotional development as important as the three Rs. Tess Rearden, who lives near the scene, said: 'We were woken up by the sound of doors slamming and saw all these police vans and riot vans.

'It was bedlam - real bedlam.'

Neighbour Mark Hill, 44, said: 'The first thing I thought was it must be terrorism.

'I couldn't think of anything else that would need so many police. But the police were calm. 'I could hear the people singing "We'll be back again" as they were being led away.' The school was being searched yesterday, and forensic officers were seen leaving the school with a number of backpacks.

No one at the school was available for comment. An E.on spokesman said: 'We will be assisting police in their investigations into what could have been a very dangerous attempt to disrupt an operational power plant.'





