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Trespass incident at Manchester Piccadilly (11/03)

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6Gman

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If a large group of football/rugby supporters had acted this way, would the Police of treated it the same?

In my experience, probably yes. When you have large numbers involved getting them to "move along" is usually the only practical option, and is also the quickest way of restoring normal service.
 
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61653 HTAFC

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The 2011 riots were totally different as those rioters smashed up numerous buildings in Manchester city centre and Pendleton and involved targetted intimidation of shoppers and various workers. They also led to security reviews which (for instance) including blocking out natural light for office workers to avoid being lacerated by smashed panes of glass. It was also widely believed that the riots in Pendleton were orchestrated by local Crime gangs, and those in Manchester city centre by "activists" based in Cheshire - as in many miles south/SW of the GM border.
They were, but some of the sentencing was harsher than it would have been had those same offences taken place in isolation: young people were jailed FOR TWEETS!
If as you say, organised crime gangs were involved, then the people at the top of those gangs should've been the ones bearing the brunt of the reaction, not the misguided youth who got swept up in a "mob mentality" situation that probably escalated far quicker than most of them anticipated.

Back on topic, my point was that if and when charges are brought against these trespassers, the charges (and sentencing if convicted) for the individuals involved should be proportionate: not decided by The Sun or by individuals on a Railway Forum.
 

DanTrain

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I wonder if your hostility towards these protesters will change if Sheffield is the next Daesh target.
What? I happen to agree with what their protesting about, Turkey's involvement is unnaceptable. That doesn't make it acceptable to block off an entire station. If Daesh blocked off Piccadilly, I'm sure the tabloids would be up in arms screaming 'Terrorism hits the Railways'!
 

Ash Bridge

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It would be very interesting to see how the Turkish authorities would have handled this had these brave 'Warriors' had the guts to make their protest there and block a main railway artery in a similar fashion, would they have even bothered stopping rail traffic or turned the juice off?
 

Iskra

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What? I happen to agree with what their protesting about, Turkey's involvement is unnaceptable. That doesn't make it acceptable to block off an entire station. If Daesh blocked off Piccadilly, I'm sure the tabloids would be up in arms screaming 'Terrorism hits the Railways'!

Sorry, if you don't agree with selfish people endangering themselves and causing a nuisance to normal people, then you automatically support autocratic regimes who 'disappear' people and/or ISIS. Did you not read the the forum T&C's before you signed up, it's in there somewhere...
 

DanTrain

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Sorry, if you don't agree with selfish people endangering themselves and causing a nuisance to normal people, then you automatically support autocratic regimes who 'disappear' people and/or ISIS. Did you not read the the forum T&C's before you signed up, it's in there somewhere...
I'm not sure I understand your point here. At no point did I suggest this!?
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Just to put a different slant on the discussion I would say there is a real failure on the part of our intelligence services here. There was a similar protest a while back at Heathrow when Kurdish groups held an invading protest at one of Heathrow's terminal check-in areas. The fact that a fly-on-the-wall documentary series was being filmed at the time was likely no co-incidence. The Piccadilly protest was clearly organised. Given that oppressed groups resident here are bound to attract the attention of their oppressors our intelligence services should certainly be seeking to closely monitor them and possibly infiltrate them.

And FTR I broadly support the Kurds to the extent I would not be averse to outside military support for their struggle. Upsetting any one or more of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran is not something I would have the least qualms about.
 

LowLevel

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What? I happen to agree with what their protesting about, Turkey's involvement is unnaceptable. That doesn't make it acceptable to block off an entire station. If Daesh blocked off Piccadilly, I'm sure the tabloids would be up in arms screaming 'Terrorism hits the Railways'!

If Daesh decided to blockade Piccadilly I would imagine the tabloid headlines would be the least of anyone's worries.


At a minimum the children should be removed into safe custody because anyone stupid enough to take them onto a railway line can't be trusted to keep them safe. The rest I'll leave to the barrack room lawyers.
 
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meolebrace

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Whatever your view this was a serious security breach. And there is no excuse for these protesters to block our railway. The Turkish embassy..yes...but not the railway. It could give terrorists ideas. That is not a thought I want to even entertain but it is a possibility.

There should be a public inquiry!
 

Dentonian

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Just to put a different slant on the discussion I would say there is a real failure on the part of our intelligence services here. There was a similar protest a while back at Heathrow when Kurdish groups held an invading protest at one of Heathrow's terminal check-in areas. The fact that a fly-on-the-wall documentary series was being filmed at the time was likely no co-incidence. The Piccadilly protest was clearly organised. Given that oppressed groups resident here are bound to attract the attention of their oppressors our intelligence services should certainly be seeking to closely monitor them and possibly infiltrate them.

And FTR I broadly support the Kurds to the extent I would not be averse to outside military support for their struggle. Upsetting any one or more of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran is not something I would have the least qualms about.

If it was "clearly organised" then the fact that it was on a Sunday does suggest that the prime aim was to attract Media attention but possibly to disrupt (relatively) few people's lives. Its still Winter in reality; there is no football or AFAIK other major event in Manchester today; we're still three weeks away from school/University holidays and Rail disruption on a Sunday for other pre-planned reasons is par for the course.
 

Darandio

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If it was "clearly organised" then the fact that it was on a Sunday does suggest that the prime aim was to attract Media attention but possibly to disrupt (relatively) few people's lives. Its still Winter in reality; there is no football or AFAIK other major event in Manchester today; we're still three weeks away from school/University holidays and Rail disruption on a Sunday for other pre-planned reasons is par for the course.

How considerate of them.
 

CyrusWuff

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There is no football or AFAIK other major event in Manchester today.
On the contrary. The Manchester St Patrick's Day Parade took place today. Presumably a week early due to United being at home to Brighton with a 19:45 kick off next Saturday.
 

221129

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And it's already starting to spread 150+ protesters gathering at Kings Cross as a result of this morning's nonsense. Hopefully the Met will deal with it properly...
 

LowLevel

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And it's already starting to spread 150+ protesters gathering at Kings Cross as a result of this morning's nonsense. Hopefully the Met will deal with it properly...

There's an extremely large police presence at Kings Cross.
 

bus man

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I do hope they arrests will / have been made because it sets a dangerous president if they haven’t.

I was on sheffield station when this was unfolding lots of trains been held. Staff working very hard in difficult circumstances. It didn’t help as the announcements were still referring to cdnceleed trains - how easy is it to turn these off ?


Well done to the guard of the 1510 transpemine to cleethorpes which started at Sheffield just before it left a elderly lady appeared complete with the standard suite case on wheels plus two further bags. She was obviously on some distress and asked if the train was going to Doncaster as she was travelling to Northallerton.

The guard immeduatuey confutk Doncaster and helped her into first class.

Railway staff at there best.
 

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Shaw S Hunter

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If it was "clearly organised" then the fact that it was on a Sunday does suggest that the prime aim was to attract Media attention but possibly to disrupt (relatively) few people's lives. Its still Winter in reality; there is no football or AFAIK other major event in Manchester today; we're still three weeks away from school/University holidays and Rail disruption on a Sunday for other pre-planned reasons is par for the course.

Could be to do with the fact that many/most have jobs to attend and their children go to school. So all about their own convenience. But yes, in their own minds the aim was to cause relatively little disruption while still getting lots of attention. The Heathrow protest ended amicably with everyone leaving without the need for any coercion. Put it down to a cultural difference. It's a fact that we take trespassing on railway tracks far more seriously in this country than just about anywhere else in the world so this protest has caused plenty of indignation as witnessed in this very thread. A similar protest in another country would have led to lots of shoulder shrugging and not much else.
 

Jonfun

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I have absolutely no interest in what they were protesting about, Kurds fighting Turkey or whatever is nothing to do with me, I couldn't care less if they succeed or fail in their fight - but I respect their right to have an opinion and protest. What I find nothing short of despicable however is that these protesters were using kids (including one in a pushchair) to block the tracks. Kids who were too young to have an opinion either way.

BTP and GMP's inaction on the clear breaches of law in this situation, in my opinion, is an indictment on our society.
 

jawr256

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I hate to get back to the trains ................but I noticed on Tracksy that 1L13 departed Manchester Piccadilly 49L en-route to Sheffield and eventually Norwich having been cancelled between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Oxford Road, departing from platform 14, I've not seen a 'Southbound' service leave from Platform 14 before, I'm sure there are plenty of examples or is this 'fairly' unusual?

There was a signalling issue a few months ago that resulted in platforms 13 and 14 both being swapped from their normal directions for a whole evening peak, with trains departing from the 'B' ends. Trains swapped lines between Oxford Road and Piccadilly and back again south of Piccadilly so there was quite a wait.

edit: This also really confused the "next train" boards in the 13/14 upstairs waiting area, which aren't set up to show trains on 13B/14B.
 

Intermodal

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Whatever your view this was a serious security breach. And there is no excuse for these protesters to block our railway. The Turkish embassy..yes...but not the railway. It could give terrorists ideas. That is not a thought I want to even entertain but it is a possibility.

There should be a public inquiry!

Not really, it's about as much of a security breach as me walking from my front door to the shop - there's nothing stopping these protesters or myself doing either.
 

bus man

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Unconfirmed reports - sorry I’ll ready covered - protests at kings cross and St Pancras

Nfd
 

takno

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I have absolutely no interest in what they were protesting about, Kurds fighting Turkey or whatever is nothing to do with me, I couldn't care less if they succeed or fail in their fight - but I respect their right to have an opinion and protest. What I find nothing short of despicable however is that these protesters were using kids (including one in a pushchair) to block the tracks. Kids who were too young to have an opinion either way.

BTP and GMP's inaction on the clear breaches of law in this situation, in my opinion, is an indictment on our society.
As a country, we persist in treating Turkey as an ally when it suits us. The more disgraceful ends of our political class even like to pretend that they support Turkey entering the EU, mostly in an attempt to stir up anti-EU feeling admittedly, but it's all playing up to Erdogan and his oppressive regime. You may not personally take an interest in it, but it absolutely has to do with the country they are protesting in.
 

edwin_m

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Very well said
It's not the right way to go about things, for sure, and there's no question that climbing on the track puts lives at risk, but the fact is that Erdogan and his government's policies is causing death and suffering for other ordinary human beings, and targeting a major civic instruction is a useful way to attempt to make the government sit up and take notice to end this death and suffering. The likelihood of the government taking action is alas probably slim, but that doesn't mean that no-one should protest and bring the death and suffering to greater public and government attention at the very least. If the roles were reversed I would hope that similar protests would happen in Turkey
I wonder how this action might have affected the attitude of the general public to the cause that they were promoting. I have considerable sympathy for the plight of the Kurds, though I believe intervention by the West would be counter-productive as it was in Iraq. But had I been seriously inconvenienced by this "demonstration" my sympathy would have been significantly reduced.
 

bnm

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I do hope they arrests will / have been made because it sets a dangerous president if they haven’t.

That's the thing though. They were protesting about a dangerous president. :p

Have they set a dangerous precedent? I doubt it.
 

Darandio

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*= if any laws are actually broken. Whilst they clearly were at Piccadilly that isn't necessarily the case at KX.

Clearly at Piccadilly indeed. This picture beggars belief.



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