Police in Britain have been condemned for being “heavy-handed” and undermining the right to free speech after putting down protests by a handful of people who disagree with Prince Charles’s hereditary accession to the throne as King Charles III without seeking the consent of his subjects.
One man doing the rounds of the TV studios on Tuesday morning was Paul Powlesland, a 36-year-old smartly dressed barrister, who revealed what happened when he stood outside parliament on Monday morning while Charles was addressing some 900 politicians inside Westminster Hall.
Powlesland stressed he was not showing disrespect towards the Queen but only questioning Charles’s right to be his king without seeking his permission. What Powlesland did was hold aloft “a blank piece of paper”, when he was approached by a police officer who demanded his name and address, which is often the prelude to an arrest.
Powlesland could be heard asking the officer in a video: “Why would you ask for my details?” The officer replied: “You said you were going to write stuff on it, that may offend people, around the King. It may offend someone.”
Powlesland said the officer told him he risked being arrested if he wrote: “Not my King” on the paper. Nor is this the only example of dissent being stifled. In Edinburgh, as the hearse with the Queen’s coffin was being moved from Hollyrood house, the royal residence in Scotland, to St Giles’ Cathedral, followed on foot by Charles and his siblings, Anne, Andrew and Edward, a man in the crowd shouted out: “Andrew, you’re a sick old man.” The police quickly dealt with him and dragged him away from the crowd as the procession continued.
A spokesman said: “A 22-year-old man was arrested in connection with a breach of the peace on the Royal Mile around 2.50pm on Monday, September 12.” Andrew, Duke of York, the late monarch’s disgraced second son, stepped down from public life after the furore over his friendship with paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, and paid £12 million to settle a civil sexual assault case to Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts).
Also in Edinburgh, a 22-year-old woman was charged in connection with a breach of the peace after being arrested during the Accession Proclamation for the King outside St Giles’ Cathedral on Sunday for holding a sign, “F*** imperialism, abolish the monarchy” And in Oxford, Symon Hill, 45, was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence after shouting “Who elected him?” when he came across a public formal reading of the proclamation of the accession for the King.
Hill, who works part-time at the Peace Pledge Union, a secular pacifist organisation, was later “de-arrested”. A number of campaign groups have expressed concern at the way officers are policing protests as the new King is declared, with some warning the arrests may be unlawful.
