At lunchtime on Wednesday 26th May two addresses in Belper, Derbyshire, were raided by the North Yorkshire Counter Terrorist Unit.
One woman from The Sailboat Project was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal damage. She has since been released without charge, but bailed to return to the police station in two months (no bail conditions). Large quantities of property was confiscated, including IT equipment and mobile phones belonging to the arrestee and to other residents & visitors in the house at the time. Another woman who was away, today handed herself in to North Yorkshire police in Sussex and has been questioned and released.
One address in Sholebroke Avenue, Leeds was visited by police looking for specific people identified as having taken part in kayak training run by the Sailboat Project in North Yorkshire in April. The training was publicly advertised and well attended. The police questioned one individual. Questions included:
– what other groups are they part of
– why were they on the training
– who else was on the training
– were they planning to take action against power stations
The previous day (Tuesday 25th), police searched the premises of a different organisation not involved in boats, but with links to various gatherings. Nothing was taken. The warrant was under the Terrorism Act and is possibly related.
We are not aware of any other contact by the police, but plenty of other people were on the training…