Legal Action
After nearly six years, a verdict was given in the court case taken out by twenty-four of the travellers, who had sued Wiltshire Police for wrongful arrest, assault and criminal damage as a result of the damage to themselves and their property.
In the main, they were only able to take action against the police force - it proved difficult to pursue charges against individual police officers as none of the riot police involved had been wearing identifying numbers. Despite this, one police sergeant was convicted of an assault occasioning actual bodily harm on a member of the Convoy.
The police radio had been recorded, and was used in evidence against Wiltshire Police. It was to prove inconclusive as there were gaps in the recording at vital points.
The travellers had left from Savernake Forest, land managed by the Earl of Cardigan (David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan) on behalf of his father, the Marquess of Ailesbury. Lord Cardigan decided to follow the convoy on motorbike, together with his friend John Moore.
Lord Cardigan witnessed the events, and later testified in court against Wiltshire Police, saying that he had seen a heavily-pregnant woman being "clubbed with a truncheon." He was criticised as an unreliable witness by several national newspapers. On Monday 3 June 1985, the editorial in The Times even went as far as to state that being "barking mad was probably hereditary", probably a reference to a previous Lord Cardigan's involvement with the Charge of the Light Brigade. Lord Cardigan started legal action against The Times, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror for their attacks on him, and received written apologies and damages from each.
Lord Cardigan also described how he was approached by the police the following day, who wanted permission to remove travellers who were still at Savernake:
| “ | They said they wanted to go into the campsite 'suitably equipped' and 'finish unfinished business'. Make of that phrase what you will. I said to them, that if it was my permission they were after, they did not have it. I did not want a repeat of the grotesque events that I'd seen the day before. | ” |
After four months of hearings, twenty-one of the travellers were successful in their case and were awarded £24,000 in damages. The judge refused to award them their legal costs, thereby significantly reducing the amount received.
Their barrister, Lord Gifford QC (Anthony Maurice Gifford, 6th Baron Gifford), stated "It left a very sour taste in the mouth."
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Beanfield
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