I went on a demo back in 1993 when I was a young idealistic student (as opposed to my current status as an old cynical student).

A designiated Site of Special Scientific Interest was to be bulldozed to make way for a road and some friends and I decided we were going to do our bit to stop it.

There were 11 of us on a coach which had been converted into a mobile home and which was in fact the home of the driver.

When we arrived at our destination, the demonstration which we thought we would find simply hadn't turned up.

A solitary member of friends of the earth was stood in a siding by the road, with his banner, looking quite dejected that his publicity efforts had gone so unrewarded - that is until we turned up.

Not knowing what to do, the driver of the coach, a narcissistic publicity hound who was in his 30's (the rest of us were around 19 and 20) decided to drive into a neighbouring field to set up camp.

Soon enough, the farmer who owned the field notified the police, who arrived in numerous meat wagons and cordoned off the gate.

Tresspass being a civil offfence, they couldn't come onto the field to arrest us and couldn't evict us without an eviction order, so it was that we sat on our bus in the middle of a field drinking tea while a crowd of coppers stood at the gate of the field not really knowing what to do next.

The driver at this point decided that he was going to go over to the police to "negotiate". The rest of us, uninsured to drive the bus, sat in bemusement as he rode over to the gate on his bike and was promptly arrested and thrown in the back of one of the meatwagons by the inspector in charge of operations.

And so the farce carried on ... the inspector got the permission of the farmer to come onto the field, but was not entitled to come onto the bus without our permission and besides, while the driver had been arrested for criminal damage after driving through the fence to get onto the field, as passengers, there were no grounds to arrest us so an absurd stalemate ensued, in which a preposterous red faced inspector shouted empty threats at us and got more and more angry out in the cold while we drank tea and smoked handrolled "cigarettes" and marvelled at the scene unfolding in front of us.

We had no driver so we couldn't go anywhere even if we had wanted to or been capable of doing anything about it.

Anyway, finally the inspector was relieved by the area superintendant who knocked on the door and asked if it would be ok to come on board to have a chat and a cuppa.

We agreed and he came in and sat down at the table. We made him a cuppa and started to chat. He apologized for arresting the driver and we apologized for his behaviour. He agreed to let the driver go without charge if we'd agree to drive off the field and keep him on a shorter leash.

This was fine by us and when the driver was brought back to us we stuck to our side of the bargain and the super stuck to his - having taken stock of the situation and seen that on the one hand we were totally harrmless and on the other that he needed us to cooperate with each other if he wanted to find an effective solution to his problem.

That is my funny story and not entirely helpful in the context of the discussions going on here, however something did come out of it which is directly relevant to some of the points being discussed.

While the super was on the bus, we talked about numerous things in a pretty open and honest way, and one of the issues we spoke about was that of police brutality. It was with great regret that he spoke, at some length, about his concerns that there were officers who joined the police because they enjoyed a good ruck and liked to give 'it' to the troublemakers.

He was concerned that such officers join up with the intention of getting into the riot squads and that they are ignored by their superiors as they indulge their taste for violence. He spoke on a personal level about his distaste at the 'strategies' employed at the beanfield and at twyford down where Group 4 security were ignored by the police as they beat up the protesters there regardless of the presence of kids.

I have a friend who has spoken about his experience at the beanfield which involved lying in a ball on the ground trying to cover his head without leaving his crotch exposed as he was being belted with truncheons at both ends before they took him off to a remote police station and kicked him out in the early evening in the middle of nowhere with nothing in his pockets and no way of getting anywhere except by walking and with nowhere to stay or money to pay for food or accomodation.

Just thought all that might help with the whole police professionalism thing.

Oh - and to round off the story,

We kept our driver on a leash and he kept his inspector on a leash and we all lived happily ever after.