Criminalisation?
Mike Weatherley, the MP for Hove, is proposing an Early Day Motion to criminalise squatting.
‘Mad Mike’ has a history of bad moves including trying to claim 50p expenses for milk and marrying a Brazilian prostitute. Now he claims his campaign is close to victory, whereas all it seems to have accomplished so far is to win him a coveted spot in wanker’s corner.
In Sussex, 6,723 privately owned homes were reported as being empty for more than 6 months in 2007. It’s madness!
Unfortunately, there is high level support for criminalisation. Kenneth Clarke is reported to be eager to rush through changes to the present law and writing in the Torygraph the Housing Minister, Grant Schapps, seems to assume squatting will be made a criminal offence. Schapps is an ignorant man, asserting that house-owners can break back into their claimed homes since “it’s physical violence against property, not the person”. We get the distinction between property damage and violence, although it’s the first time a Tory MP seems to be able to grasp it, but it’s unusual to hear a minister calling for vigilante justice in contradiction to the law. The minister seems to be unaware of the Criminal Law Act 1977, which includes the following section:
Subject to the following provisions of this section, any person who, without lawful authority, uses or threatens violence for the purpose of securing entry into any premises for himself or for any other person is guilty of an offence, provided that—
(a)there is someone present on those premises at the time who is opposed to the entry which the violence is intended to secure; and
(b)the person using or threatening the violence knows that that is the case.
The Criminal Law Act and the later Criminal Justice Act (1994) actually introduced legislation to protect intending ocuppiers and displaced residential occupiers, so people genuinely living in or about to live in properties are already protected by the law. (And no self-respecting squatter would want to live in an occupied house anyway of course).
The group which ensured squatting was not criminalised in 1994 was SQUASH, and it has now reformed.
On May18, SQUASH launched a new coalition against criminalisation as the government begins a three month consultation.
At the moment legislation fits fine with EU law and if any changes were to be made, the human rights angle is interesting, as is the legal.
Finally, here’s a little update on the organised resistance to the criminalisation of squatting from Squatastic.
All in all, this probably isn’t the last you will hear about all this…
May 2011