On the night of 28 March 2017, the group of nine women and six men cut a hole measuring one square metre in the perimeter fence of Stansted Airport. Four protesters then arranged themselves around the front landing gear of the aircraft and locked their arms together inside double-layered pipes filled with expanding foam, also displaying a banner stating “mass deportations kill”. Their aim was to prevent the departure of a deportation flight from Stansted Airport that had been chartered by the UK Home Office to forcibly deport 60 migrants to Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The activists said that they acted to prevent human rights abuses from taking place. However, they were accused of putting the safety of the airport and passengers at risk and causing serious disruption to international air travel. The police initially charged the group with aggravated trespassing, an offence carrying a maximum three-month custodial sentence.
The group
The group included members of the campaigning groups Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and End Deportations. Members were Helen Brewer, Lyndsay Burtonshaw, Nathan Clack, Laura Clayson, Melanie Evans, Joseph McGahan, Benjamin Smoke, Jyotsna Ram, Nicholas Sigsworth, Alistair Tamlit, Edward Thacker, Emma Hughes, May McKeith, Ruth Potts and Melanie Strickland.
The deportees
Eleven of the 60 passengers who were to be forcibly deported on the aircraft now legally live in the UK. Amongst the passengers to be deported were several victims of human trafficking. The majority of deportations take place on standard scheduled flights, but in this case, the activists intercepted a mass deportationcharter flight. Up to 2,000 people a year are loaded onto secretive night flights, often shackled in “waist restraint belts” or “leg restraints”. Deportees are manhandled by private security “escorts” onto aircraft hired from charter companies including Titan Airways.
Trial
The Stansted 15 stated that they acted to prevent human rights abuses from taking place yet they were accused of putting the safety of the airport and passengers at risk and causing serious disruption to international air travel. During the trial, representatives of Amnesty International UK were observing due to the serious concern that the charges had been made to deter other protesters from taking non-violent direct action, and that the group were treated with undue harshness in relation to the severity of the 'crimes'. Following a ten week trial, a jury at Chelmsford crown court found the defendants, all members of the group guilty of intentional disruption of services at an aerodrome. They were found guilty under the 1990 Aviation and Maritime Security Act, a law passed in response to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Following their conviction, a demonstration to protest against the Stansted 15’s guilty verdict was held outside the Home Office. More than 1,300 attendees turned out to hear MPs Diane Abbott and Clive Lewis speak alongside Lesbian and Gays Support the Migrants.
