Kingston Halls police riot of 24 May. Seventy-six militants of the Scottish labour movement are due The first group of seven defendants includes: Hugh Wyper, Glasgow District Secretary of the TGWU; John Reidford, Secretary of Glasgow Trades Council; Charlie Montgomery, EEPTU shop steward and former National Executive candidate; and Norman Bean, shop steward at Anderson Mavor Engineering, Glasgow. The main bulk of the civilian witnesses ranged against them are eleven members of the National Front from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Blackburn, Accrington, Birmingham and Ply mouth; they include Kingsley Read, Chairman of the NF.
It is the peaceful pickets and not Read, however, who are chargea with "bawling, cursing, shouting, swearing, obstructing the footpath and causing a breach of the peace. Read's conduct, verified by every major newspaper in Scotland, does not seem to have breached the peace. After all, he simply gave repeated Nazi salutes, shouting 'scum and "vermin' while his sidekick Richard Montague provided a backing chorus of 'fucking shit'.
We can also assume that the two Leeds fascists on trial, Derek Curtis and Frank Burden, both former thugs of the Nazi National Democratic and Freedom Movement, will follow the course of another prosecution witness, Glasgow fascist Gus Macdonald.
Shortly after the Kingston Halls incident, Macdonald stood trial for the alleged serious assault of an IMG militant. One major factor in his acquittal was his sworn avowal to the jury that he no longer had anything to do with the National Front. Yet two weeks earlier he had made statements in his own name to the Glasgow Herald as Glasgow NF Bress Spokesman; and he now appears on the list of prosecution witnesses as one of the eleven Members of the National Front Political Party Nor will the Glasgow police enter the witness box without a lot of egg on their faces. Quite apart from the mammoth job of covering up for a full scale riot, numerous assaults and systematic intimidation, they have two major problems to deal with.
CHARGES
It is strongly rumoured among defendants that a deposition made by Chief Inspector Dunford states that the police attacked the picket. If such a statement exists, it blows the whole basis of the prosecution from top to bottom It is most unlikely that reference will not be made to the matter in court.
It is also known at the time of writing that a senior Scottish Labour parliamentary figure has been engaged in correspondence with the Scottish Office concerning the possibility of charges being brought against police officers for their part in the police riot. is said to come from Scottish Office level. Halls outrage, the ruling clique of the Labour-controlled Glasgow District Council, is having a hard time of it as well. At the last full Labour Group meeting an Executive recom mendation for a rents increase was voted down 32-15 and Dick Dynes, the clique boss and Labour leader on the Council, was discreetly informed that failure to toe the line of the Labour Group would provoke an open challenge to his leadership. The leader of the rents revolt, Coun cillor Andy MacMahon, represents Kingston and has led the fight in council for Labour to ban the fascists.
MacMahon addressed a meeting called by the Scottish Immigrant Labour Council a week before the trials. Scorning the necessity to avoid remarks on 'sub judice' matters, he denounced acts of gross brutality by the Strathclyde police and stated: "I lay full blame on Glasgow District Council for acconmodating these villains." with those who thought 'that we will win over the Glasgow District Council, he-stressed the need to escalate the fight against the old clique' and Tricky Dicky Dynes'.
PICKET
MacMahon also revealed that This information Labour MP, Harry Selby, has twice refused appeals in his constituency party to support Kelvingrove MP Neil Carmichael in demanding a *all you've done is provide the STOP THE NATIONAL FRONT MARCHING THROUGH LONDON'S
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The trial opened in Glasgowon Monday of the first group of anti-fascist pickets arrested during the to appear in the courts, along with two Leeds fascists arrested by mistake by the frenzied cops.