Critical Mass / tank at G20 call for witnesses

Alas no,

and yes we were quite looking forward to giving them a royal spanking in the courts, we'd even managed to persuade a QC to represent us so it was all looking like rather good fun.

here is our press release:

http://www.spacehijackers.org/html/welcome.html

In the months leading up to London's G20 Summit in April 2009, the British press hyped up police warnings of an impending Summer Of Rage when public anger would erupt over the government's bank bailout. The streets would burn and anarchists would turn the newly unemployed into foot soldiers of the revolution. Thankfully the police calmed the situation by saying whatever happened they were 'up for it'.

Following on from previous projects where we parodied the police, the Space Hijackers decided to take our DSEi-busting tank out for another spin and ridicule the expectations of violence from the Police. We would tart her up as a Mad Max-styled mobile oppression vehicle and don fancy dress on April Fools Day (the date when the G20 summit and accompanying demonstrations were taking place). With Ride of the Valkyries blasting from the sound system, we drove into the city with our bicycle outriders to thrust the sword of satire at the State.

What's all this then? It seems the Police failed to see the humour in a 6-wheeled behemoth manned by the laughing cavaliers of anti-capitalism, arrested 11 Hijackers wearing blue boiler suits and started one of the most bizarre prosecutions mounted in a British court in recent years. In an utter waste of taxpayers' money, we were charged and scheduled for a four day trial facing charges of impersonating police officers, with the intent of decieving the public into thinking we were the real fuzz.

We always refuted these ridiculous claims on the part of the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service and invited people to look over the past 10 years of our work, which the police were well aware of, to see that we have a long history of parody, dressing up and winding up the powers that be.

Thankfully, after finally seeing sense, the CPS have now decided to drop all charges against the Space Hijackers and return our vehicle and belongings.

We would like to thank the Metropolitan Police for this amazing team building exercise they have put us through. At the cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the tax payer, the Space Hijackers as a group are now much more numerous, organised, brave, focussed and optimistic in what we can get away with. We look forward to their continued, if slightly fanatically eager interest in our work; getting our tank back, our compensation and using our new found team skills, to take our forms of protest up to the next more outrageous and cunning level.

We can only assume that the CPS bottled what was heading to be a very very expensive, complete circus of a trial ending in their inevitable humiliation at the hands of the Hijackers, Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors and our QC.

Michael Wolkind QC, who was briefed on behalf of all the defendants, commented " it was a great surprise when Keir Starmer, the DPP, took time off from the investigation of the death of Ian Tomlinson, personally to confirm the absurd decision to pursue this prosecution. His judgement has been exposed by the late decision to discontinue the case".

In other news, the Space Hijackers now have a whole free week which we’ve all booked off work and therefore intend to spend it causing as much chaos as possible.