Palmer’s car bumped us—students

Press, 25 February 1989, Page 1

Palmer’s car bumped us—students

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

A group of students protesting against “user-pays” education at Lincoln College yesterday claim they were almost run over by a car carrying the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer. They claim the car did not slow down and they would have been run over had not the police dragged them out from “under the bumper” of the vehicle. “Yes, definitely — the top of my shoe went under the tyre,” said Ms Tanya Fraser, one of the protesters, and this year’s Canterbury University Students’ Association orientation controller. Ms Fraser and Mr Shane Murphy, the association’s student affairs officer, said they were part of a group of about 10 who went to a side exit of the Lincoln campus to try to block Mr Palmer’s exit after he had attended the official opening of Lincoln’s new library. About 100 other protesters were blocking the main exit. When his car and another made for the side exit, they sat in the way, expecting what they thought was a legal requirement of three warnings before having to move. Instead, they claim, there were no warnings and the cars did not slow down. Mr Murphy said that about half the group suffered cuts, bruises or torn clothing In the resulting scramble. Two of the students were arrested, charged with disorderly

behaviour, and later released on police bail. Mr Palmer said that it had not been a serious incident. His driver had been told by the police to leave by a side entrance after the demonstrators blocked the main road with a truck and a car. About 20 protesters at the side road, however, tried to block it by pushing the wrought iron gates closed, and police moved to remove them, said Mr Palmer. Mr Palmer said that some of the protesters then ran towards a roundabout, his driver had to accelerate to get past them, and the protesters then stopped. “I suggest to you that they were engaged in an act of political demonstration, and they were breaking the law,” he said. “I reject any suggestion that anything done by my driver was wrong.” The driver acted on instructions from the police and it was “not for me or my driver to interfere with that. And there was a policeman in my car. “As far as I am concerned, the police acted quite appropriately in the circumstances.” Mr Palmer said that before the ceremony he had agreed to meet a deputation of the protesters, on the condition there would be no disruption. That meeting went ahead, in spite of “quite serious” disruption. „. . Picture, page 10