Mass Arrests Have No Place in a Democratic Country

There are times, and they seem to be growing more frequent, when the civil liberties we still associate with life in Britain suddenly start to look dangerously fragile. Yesterday was one such occasion. We woke up to the news that 114 people had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass and criminal damage. This deserves to be spelled out. More than 100 people were arrested in the Sneinton Dale area of Nottingham not for committing an offence, but for allegedly planning to do so. In other words, they were arrested pre-emptively.

Now pre-emptive arrests may sometimes be justified: for instance, if there is evidence that an act of terrorism or other major life-threatening crime is nearing execution. But the evidence has to be persuasive, and it is often hard to convince a jury that a conspiracy to commit a crime existed, as acquittals under such circumstances show. People tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that someone can be arrested before a crime has been committed – and rightly so. It smacks of totalitarian regimes and the thought police.

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