New Age Travellers Vs The Media (Stonehenge 1985)
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- This video looks at the events on 1st June 1985, in which a large group of New Age Travellers, attempting to reach the site of the annual Stonehenge Free Festival, were stopped on the road & attacked by police. Fleeing the violence, they escaped into a nearby field, and set up camp. The police surrounded them, and threatened them with arrest if they tried to leave the field. After a few hours, a large contingent of riot police went in to field, and brutally attacked the travellers, smashed up the buses & vehicles that the travellers lived in (even setting one of them on fire), and arrested over four hundred people.
This act of extreme and unprovoked violence by the police on that day has subsequently become known as 'The Battle Of The Beanfield', and was part of a huge police operation that had been planned for months, in a very deliberate attempt to destroy the New Age Traveller community that was despised by the establishment & the authorities.
For those unfamiliar with this event & the story behind it, this Wikipedia article provides all the details & background information ~ en.wikipedia.o....
In this video I focus on the variations in the way the media portrayed this event, by using TV news clips from the time, plus excerpts from several subsequent documentaries. On the day itself, the police ordered the press to keep out of the field, despite not having the authority to make such a demand. Only a few courageous journalists, such as Nick Davies from 'The Observer' newspaper & Kim Sabido from the ITN tv news team (both of whom appear in this video) actually went into the field, and witnessed the appalling police violence. The absence of most of the journalists allowed the police to afterwards present a dishonest version of events, alleging that the only people acting violently were the New Age Travellers. For months prior to this, various right wing tabloids (such as The Daily Mail) had been running a disgraceful stream of stories, demonising the New Age Travellers by portraying them as drug-crazed violent maniacs, and consequently that became many people's perception of them. As a result, most of the media swallowed the police's version of events, and that was the version that most of the media presented immediately afterwards (as can be seen in the TV news clip at the start of this video).
The footage of the police attacking buses (from 1.20 - 2.30) & Kim Sabido's report (at 3.14) detailing the police violence was not broadcast at the time. ITN instead chose to present a news report (seen at the start of this video) that portrayed the New Age Travellers as the ones who were causing violence. According to Kim Sabido, footage filmed by the ITN crew of some of the worst acts of police violence on that day subsequently 'disappeared' from the ITN News offices after he returned to London.
The police's version of events was accepted as the 'truth' immediately afterwards. However, good investigative journalism, documentaries, & a wealth of personal accounts & photographs that have come to light since, have subsequently debunked that version, and the real story is available in many good documentaries (links below). Unfortunately, by the time the truth came out, most of the public weren't interested, or were so trapped in their own bias & prejudice that they weren't prepared to believe the truth. At 10.14 in this video is a clip from a press conference the following year, given by Donald Smith (Wiltshire Chief Of Police) in which he sticks steadfastly to his version of events & continues to demonise the travellers as dangerous & violent criminals.
The 'Battle Of The Beanfield' remains one of the most shocking acts of unprovoked police violence in recent British history, yet despite a very large number of unanswered questions about it (& the events leading up to it), there has never been any official inquiry into it.
Some good documentaries on The Battle Of The Beanfield ~
• Operation Solstice doc...
• U.K Free Festivals - T...
• TRASHED 1986 DOCUMENTARY
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #30 ДВА В ОДНОМ [Один человек]• Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nrXy15orKhY/mqdefault.jpg)
I too was caught up in these events , I'm a children's entertainer who was on the way to be part of the festival kids area and I was brutally beaten, my home was smashed up and it took 6 years to get some justice through the courts and then they took every penny back that they gave us in compensation for humiliating public strip searches, illegal imprisonment and damage to our homes (vehicles). They then spent 2 days behind locked doors (away from jounalists) trying to make us liable for the millions of pounds wasted on the biggest civil liberties court case in english history.... they wanted us liable for the rest of our lives! they failed thank god.....I still entertain children at festivals to this day, they failed to stop the festival people, it grew as a movement instead......clowns 1 police 0 ;) great bit of footage well done, there are news reports here I've never seen.
Yes i can confirm this story....i was the truntion that hit you the hardest 😂
That first new report is so dishonest. It starts off by saying the convoy "crashed through roadblocks". That is a lie. The convoy encountered two roadblocks. The first one they took a detour away from, and the second one (adjacent to the bean field) they stopped at. No 'crashing through' happened.
The narration accompanying the clip of travellers cutting down a wooden fence claims this was "in preparation for the violent confrontation that followed" , the implication being that the travellers were planning the violence, and that they were cutting down the fence to make weapons from the wooden planks. That is a lie. The reason they were cutting down the fence was so that they could get their vehicles into the field, as the vehicles that were stopped at the roadblock were being smashed up by the police & the occupants attacked & arrested. The travellers were cutting down the fence so they could find a way to escape the police violence.
It's all a government controlled media shitshow back when they could pull off that kind of thing. They no longer can.
Now they need to rely on fake news and made up footage running on publicly trusted news.
It's the last bastion of control and it's slipping away as more people view news online.
The beanfield wouldn't happen today. There would have been far too many mobile phones catching it.
The government is on the run. It's the corps we need to a get handle on.
We can only do that by voting and we need to do it soon.
If we are not careful not long from now governments will not be running the show and our overlords will not be elected representatives but profitable Directors with no duty other than to serve their shareholder masters. The New Aristocracy.
Fuck that.
Luv and Peace.
Outrageous. Thanks for uploading.
Where did you manage to find these reports, if I may ask?
+SJW101, the political gamer All the stuff I've used here I've found on UA-cam. Sometime in the next few days, I'll write something in the underbar giving more details of sources etc.
DaisyPumpkin23
Cheers. The things they got away with back in the day, even in front of the media.
Not that the corporate media of today is much better, but it would be much harder to hide or defend such footage. Plus the story would become police brutality which is established these days, rather that weirdo travelling hippies.
Ahh progress...
The normal decent people are the ones living in the vans. And the crazies outside know it.
Footage removed, let’s hide the truth. Shameful!
The truth is that had Stonehenge gone ahead that year it would have been the 12 year in a row, and would have gained perpetuity in law and would have not been stoppable , hence the Extreme actions, also most were millitary personnel and not even real police.
Also see Phil Merrall - UK Politica
The police should be ashamed of themselves........very upsetting and as for National Trust upholding the law.....what a joke....fox hunting is illegal but they allow it on their land
christopher blackwell they don't know the meaning of shame
The commentary at the beginning is very tongue in teeth biased on the polices side and complete lies.I liked the hand drawn sketchs as travellers in tanks attacking the pigs with caption" piece convoy" . In generall good video footage but best watched with volume off and Motorhead playing instead. The journo doing the bean field was a stand up guy. I have friends that was involved at Chodderton and ive lived that life since 89 on and off.
I'll never forgive or forget..notice the opening comment..the convoy was mostly men.....error actually men,women ,children..families....Thatcher and her minions waged war on us.