OCCUPY LEICESTER SET TO RE-ESTABLISH STREET CAMP IN CITY CENTRE

This article is published in today's Leicester Mercury:

Occupy Leicester set to re-establish street camp in city centre

Anti-capitalist campaigners Occupy Leicester are set to re-establish a street camp in the city centre.

The plans were announced at a meeting attended by more than a dozen supporters in the city centre yesterday.

The protesters, some suffering chest infections after spending five weeks camped in front of the Highcross shopping centre, moved into empty offices above the disused Litten Tree pub, in High Street, the weekend before Christmas.

However, they were evicted following a court order granted to leaseholders Safe Computing Ltd at a hearing on Friday, December, 23.

The company said the protesters did not have permission to use the building and the offices were needed for new staff to be employed during 2012.

At the meeting at the Clock Tower yesterday, Occupy Leicester spokesman Isaac Cabon, a 19-year-old student, said the group needed to reorganise after suffering dissent among some supporters.He said: "We are definitely coming back before the end of January. But we are yet to decide where we will set up camp.

"Occupy Leicester has taken its knocks and has fallen, now it is time for us to get back up again.

"The infighting and clandestine power struggles that racked the occupation need to come to an end – when we are fighting a common cause and a common enemy we don't have the time or energy to be fighting among ourselves, especially when we are taking on an entity as large as the one we are."

Mr Cabon apologised for leaving equipment behind in the Safe Computing Ltd building.

He said members of the group would like to arrange a time to pick up their tents, sleeping bags and other equipment.

He said: "We would like to apologise to the company. We believed the offices had been empty for months and there was no chance of them being used in the near future.

"We did not know the computer company had plans to use them."

He said the decision to break up the street camp was taken because many of the protestors were suffering from chest infections after braving the cold for five weeks.

One of the supporters, 17-year-old college student Nicole Bambam Thompson, who attended the court hearing, said she suffered from a viral infection before Christmas from staying out under canvas.

She said: "We will be much better prepared than before. We will bring thermal clothing this time.

"It is important we set up camp again."

Fellow campaigner Mark Smith, 40, said: "I fully support setting up the camp again. I did not want to break it up in the first place.

"We need to keep a presence on the street so that people can see what we are protesting against.

"I am used to life on the streets."