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Criminalising council given wake-up call

Activists stage camp outside town hall after it tries to slap huge fines on homeless people

HOUSING campaigners will show their anger at a London council’s bid to criminalise the homeless by setting up camp on its front door.

Reclaim Hackney told the Star yesterday that activists will bunk down outside Hackney Town Hall for three days in response to newly introduced Public Spaces Protection Orders.

The council’s original PSPO banned “anti-social activities” including “rough sleeping” in increasingly gentrified east London areas such as Hackney Downs, London Fields and Broadway Market, with the threat of a £1,000 fine for rule-breakers.

A public outcry forced the council to drop explicit mention of homeless people from the PSPO but campaigners still want the orders scrapped completely.

Reclaim Hackney campaigner Jane Clendon told the Star: “I am totally against any type of PSPO anywhere in the country.“There are adequate laws in place around anti-social behaviour which should be enforced as necessary by the police who are qualified to do this.

“Hackney’s PSPO gives the abilities of criminalising members of the public to council workers — they are not trained in this area and it is left to their personal discretion as to who is in breach of an order and who is not.

“I fear that stereotyping will come into play and sections of our community marginalised further and potentially criminalised.”

The group will officially announce the camp plans at a community fete it is holding in Dalston Eastern Curve Gardens at 12 noon today.

Hackney Council has ordered the PSPO as a “last resort,” but many fear the nature of the new law will lead to a lack of accountability in its enforcement.

The three-day protest will include the presence of local residents, as well as a string of housing and human rights campaigns.

A spokesman from Hackney private renters’ group Digs said: “We won’t stand by and let [Hackney Council] criminalise vulnerable people they have a responsibility to protect.

“We would have hoped the council’s conscience and judgement would have deterred them from pursuing this.

“But lacking that, the huge numbers of people willing to take action on this issue should convince them this PSPO is a dangerous mistake.

“This campaign won’t rest until we see the order overturned in its entirety.”

Hackney Council told the Star it refused to comment on demands to withdraw the PSPO.

An earlier statement by the council argued it dropped the word “rough-sleepers” from the PSPO “so that it more clearly reflects the anti-social behaviour the order is targeting.”

Hackney Deputy Mayor Sophie Linden blamed “inaccurate headlines” for people’s concerns.

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