Senate House is the huge dour building which dominates Russel Square. It houses the administration of the entire federal complex of the University of London. Last October it was the scene of a clash between protesting against the University's links with Rhodesia and a university private "army" which led to the arrest of three socialist militants-Paul Hoch, Gordon Gillespie and Peter Brayshaw- -whose trial on an indictment containing nine counts including riot, actual bodily harm, and malicious damage to property, opened at the Old Bailey on June 29th (just as the University term closed).
Result: —Paul Hoch: 9 months jail for unlawful assembly, 3 concurrent months for assault, and recommended deportation. Gordon Gillespie: months suspended for unlawful assembly, 3 months suspended for assaults. To be held in custody pending deportation. Peter Brayshaw: 2 years conditional discharge for unlawful assembly and assault. Between them the three have to pay £320 "costs".
Like the more-publicised Cambridge, Parkhurst and Ulster riot trials, the London trial shows how the ruling class is attempting to use the old Common Law of England to deter people from going on demonstrations where others might use violence, thus making the assembly "unlawful" or "riotous". The recent trials are attempts to establish modern precedents which can be used to threaten any political assembly. In additon, during the course of this trial, a wealth of information emerged relating to the measures taken by a large University when it is decided that "counter-insurgency" programmes are needed to deal with student unrest and criticism. It is possible to reconstruct from the evidence given at the Old Bailey the COUTSC of development of London University's anti-student techniques.
The story begins in March 1969 when a group of about 30 tudents sat-in in the Registrar's office in Senate House in protest against the University's racialist Lodgings Bureau policy. The protestors stayed peaceably singing protest songs and chanting slogans. This so offended the Clerk to the Senate, Dr. Pownall, that he resolved a repetition of this "March Invasion" (as rather dramatically terms it would never occur.
SITTING ON A POWDER BARREL Between April and October, Pownall set in train the building up of a complete package of defense measures for preventing that kind of re-occurrence, or if it did occur, for identifying and dealing with any student or non-student participants. It is important to note that according to the Vice-Chancellor's testimony at the Old Bailey, only some of these measures had been properly discussed with him.
Firstly, Solicitors* advice had been taken relating to the rights of the University staff to the use of force in defence". Next Pownall had meetings with senior Police officers attached to Tottenham Court Road station, especially with Chief-Inspector Penny and Chief Superintendant Forrest. More than once, one or other of these officers toured Senate House with Pownall, pointing out vulnerable aspects of the building. Pownall also had informal luncheon dates with these policemen. The University purchased an expensive camera with a high-speed German-made electronic flash, and had an amateur photographer on the staff instructed in its use for the identification of any unwanted persons entering the Senate House. Most disquieting, Pownall recruited a squad of twenty-five volunteers from the administrative levels of the University bureaucracy to actually help him in the dirty work of handling any incursions by demonstrating students.
By October the whole package was prepared. Though nothing much had happened in the way of student militancy since March, Pownall thought "the administrators of the University were sittDoORS WITH IRON BARS (UNLOCKET HERUY WOOD DOORS (OPEN)
CAMERACE GLASS PARITION SWING BODe (LOCKED Students entered from Car Park (left). were allowed through three sets of securable doors into lobby. where confrontation was staged and ing on a powder barrel". We can surmise that he thought the way to deal with this situation was to hammer the first manifestation of militancy, hoping to intimidate the students in general.
POWNALL'S ARMY The LSE paper "Beaver" had carried a full-page announcement of the impending October 21st demonstration, and on the day before leaflets had been distributed in the colleges. The University was forewarned. A hurried series of consultations took place, resulting in the mobilisation of "Pownall's Army" who were given a las minute briefing to the effect that they must not be the first to use force, but they could retaliate if the students used force.
And so by 3.30 on Tuesday October 21st, two groups of forces were drawn up. On one side 25-30 students, intending to personally complain to the Principal about the Special Relationship with University College Salisbury. On the other side: Pownall's 25 volunteers; a reserve squad of 15; at least 4 Special Branch men (one masquerading as a student); one photo, grapher; and several uniformed Police, with others in readiness.
The heavy security doors of the main building had been left open, luring the deputation into a lobby surrounded on three sides by glass partitioning, behind which perched the photographer instructed snap "anything unusual". Pownall challenged the students as to their business, and they replied that they had come to see Sir Douglas Logan to protest about the University's collaboration with Southern African fascism. Pownall made no response other than further challenges to the students' purpose and identity, despite his orders to admit a small deputation. Jostling took place in the small lobby, and Pownall made a curious "hands up" gesture intended to signal to the photographer, and apparently to show his staff that the students had used violence against him. covered the camera lens; an attempt was ARMOURED "SNATCH' DOOR LOBBY (UNLOCKED, BUT MANNED GLASS RECEPTION HALL TO LOGANS OFFICE demonstrators photographed. Lea snatched through rightinto Reception Hall and arrested.
made to close the security doors; and then a second incident occurred, described b the prosecution "letting "getting Hoch in", or "helping Pownall and Hoch into the reception hall" and by the defence as "Pownall grabbing Hoch" "seizing Hoch" or "snatching Hoch". NIPPED IN THE BUD On the evidence, Hoch was dragged into the reception hall, held in a choking grip by Pownall, and a body of students tried to rescue him. The staff partially closed the doors on the leading members of this group, and Gillespie was wedged between a door and its jamb, in some pain. He was then dragged through a Crown witness described how he lifted Gillespie's right leg off the ground and pulled him through the door) and others fell through after, including a girl who alleged her hair was pulled and she was thrown to the ground Other students tried to keep the doo open but the staff forced it shut, despite a rooden notice-board pedestal having bee Between the do and its jamb. After five students were arrested by the police at Pownall's personal request, and a couple Paul Hoch got nine months for is shown here in the grip of his own hired thugs.
And to the Senate House snatch squad had done its work. The first demonstration of the new academic year had been nipped in the bud; its leaders had been grabbed and handed over to the police; everybody on it had been photographed; a few had been mildly roughed up. Pownall and the University would probably have been happy with this outcome plus a couple of fines for breach of the peace or common assault handed out by the local magistrate But not so the Home Office, the DPP and the Police. In their minds there existed a useful opportunity to continue their experiment of using old Common-Law offences to inhibit the right of demonstration. This experiment had begun with the Davoren Trial which started when the Senate House Three were still in Brixton Prison on remand. The charges were escalated out of all proportion to the incident, and the trial scheduled for June in the Central Criminal Court.
POLITICS OUT OF ORDER At the Old Bailey the Crown seemed to feel it lacked hard evidence of the specific allegations made, and relied upon establishing the vague quantities of "purpose" and "intent" through a recital of each defendant's prevIous political activities and writings. Although the Judge ruled out of order "politics" as such (i.e. the politics of the University's links with Southern Africa) much of the Crown cross-examination consisted of questions about previous demonstrations, sit-ins, the ULU Occupation in January 69. and attitudes to authority and "confrontations with authority" in general.
Though the students were supposedly on trial for their specific actions and not for their ideas, much reliance both in Crown summing-up and in the Judge's direction and sentencing was placed on Paul Hoch's book, published by Sheed and Ward; "LSE, the natives are restless"; and on Peter Brayshaw's leaflets about the links between the University and Southern Africa as the prosecution interpreted and quoted those writings. And thus, although the charges of riot; causing actual bodily harm; and damaging property were not proved, the amorphous, blanket charge of "unlawful assembly", which hinges on the intent and purpose of the collectivity as a whole, was upheld by the jury, indirectly legitimating Pownall's Army.
What were the Senate House snatch squad protecting? London University has always been the lynchpin of colonial university administration. This position has not altered simply because Smith has requested the link with UCR be broken. Logan is still persona grata in Salisbury. London continues to control the training up of the native black elites who "serve the newly independent nations as agents of the Western powers (c.f. the new leadership in Ghana). Administrators and governors of London University are still involved with trading with Southern African apartheid The University mirrors its support for authoritarian regimes abroad in the way it handles student dissent at home. Logan and /nall have introduced SouthAfrican style police measures the London campus. And this is what must be fought when the University re-opens for the new academic year. Special Reporter "assaulting Dr. Pownall, who
/Blacks-Islington & Notting Hill Again 1429 judiciary has set itself firmly against any Black Dwarf 5th September 1970 page 5
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ANTI-STUDENT TECHNIQUES
ENTRANCE HALL