Differences emerged between Travellers and some of the activists overnight, writes MARK HENNESSY
SHORTLY BEFORE 2pm yesterday, Mary McCarthy walked quickly past the place where her chalet used to be. “I am going to tell them to go,” she said hurriedly, heading towards the activists who have supported, and sometimes hindered, the Travellers’ cause at Dale Farm.
Standing on a chair, she said: “You have done everything that you could”. The activists went into conclave, before accepting the Travellers’ wishes.
Following Wednesday’s violence when riot police entered the site, some Travellers had become concerned about the continuing presence of the activists, despite acknowledging the aid that they had offered over recent months.
Thirty-four arrests were made on Wednesday and yesterday morning, though just one so far has been charged for refusing to take off a mask. However, Supt Trevor Rowe pointedly told the press that just one was from Essex “and none of them are Travellers”.
In the early hours of yesterday, some differences emerged between Travellers about the activists after some Travellers wanted to leave with their caravans during the night after a fire was started at the back of the lands.
However, the gates could not be opened because a number of activists were still locked to them. A request to have them freed went unheeded – partly because the activists did not want to give up the fight.
By dawn, Candy Sheridan of the Gypsy Council, who has led the Travellers’ battle in the courts, reported the existence of the disagreements, provoking one of the activists to warn: “Be careful what you say, Candy”.
In any event, the wishes of the Travellers wanting to quit could not then have been accommodated because of some the “lock-in” activists were manacled to chains embedded in concrete. In the end, it took bailiffs several daylight hours to get them free.
The violence from the activists on Wednesday during the forced entry by riot police left cooler heads amongst the Travellers disturbed, fearful that their property and reputation would suffer even more damage if it was repeated yesterday.
Looking on, Birmingham-based, Donegal-born priest Fr John Moore, visiting local Catholic priest Fr Dan Mason, said: “I find it all very sad and very cruel that women and children are being treated in this way”.
However, the 4pm departure of activists was threatened within minutes after squads of riot police entered in a phalanx around Basildon Council officials to inspect the plots among the 51 that cannot be cleared, or are subject to other restrictions.
Tempers flared. “This is ludicrously heavy-handed,” said Candy Sheridan. “I told the council by telephone that the Travellers were bringing out the activists. There was no need for them to do it like this.”
Later, Basildon Council insisted there had been an agreement about the entry, though, privately, some acknowledged the news that the activists were about to leave had not reached the right ears.
Within minutes, the exit plan was postponed, but matters soon changed again, leading to Travellers, led by Kathleen McCarthy, and activists walking out through the main entrance shortly before 5pm.
“We wanted this to end with dignity. We wanted to show the whole world that we are not thugs, that we are not the law-breaking people that the whole world made us out to be,” she said, appealing as she did for the TV crews to move back.
However, last night’s departure is not the end of the story. Accepting that they will have to leave, the Travellers have not given up, with some of their advisers now threatening to force the council to complete the removal of every ounce of hard-core laid on the site.
“They won’t be able to do it. It would break them. There are thousands of tonnes of hardcore laid there, long before the Travellers arrived,” said self-taught planning expert Stewart Carruthers, who played a crucial role in the last-minute injunction that stopped the original eviction in September.
In addition, he, and others, pointed out that enforcement notices had still not been served, insisting that no one could be made to leave until they arrived – a view rejected by the council. “This is not an eviction, this is a site clearance,” said an official.
Sitting earlier on a garden chair outside a caravan, 63-year-old Michael Slattery pondered the Travellers’ status in Britain: “I am Irish, but my children are English, my grandchildren are English.They all have British passports.”
Originally from O’Briens Bridge in Limerick, Slattery owned lands in Boreham Wood in Essex, where Travellers were brutally evicted in 2004 – a description accepted by independent observers – by bailiffs. Showing his shins, which still bear stud-marks he attributes a policeman’s boot, Slattery said: “All we have ever known is racism.
“I have never been in trouble with the police in my life. I worked hard, within the law, to put food on the table for my family.”