{"id":2524,"date":"2014-12-18T10:31:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T10:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2524"},"modified":"2014-12-18T10:31:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T10:31:24","slug":"justice-freedom-riders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2524","title":{"rendered":"Justice for freedom riders"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Protestors, George Arthur, 64, and Tony Nuttall, 65, were arrested in June for obstructing police and fare evasion at Sheffield station during a rally against the axing of travel concessions for the elderly and disabled.<\/p>\n

 
\nThey were due to be trialled at Sheffield magistrates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 court on December 8 but the crown prosecution decided not to continue with the case due to a lack of evidence.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy initial reaction was a great deal of relief,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Arthur said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTony and I faced a possible prison sentence, hefty fines and prosecution costs of tens of thousands of pounds, so it was a massive relief when the charges were dropped.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nDespite his relief, Arthur admitted to feeling a little cheated by the decision.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe things that they had put in their statement were ridiculous and completely untrue,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo in that respect I do feel a sense of anger that the case has been dropped \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I would have really liked to have seen their lies shown up in court.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe freedom riders had organized a protest on the day of the trial, but once the charges were dropped, they decided to turn it into a victory rally instead.<\/p>\n

 
\nMore than 150 people attended the rally, and after making a lot of noise outside the court, they marched on to Sheffield train station and interchange.<\/p>\n

 
\nSo far the freedom riders have won full reinstatement of the disabled travel pass and a partial reinstatement of the pensioner pass.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the fight is far from over.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt just shows how determined people are to keep the campaign going,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Arthur said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really impressive. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking nine months now since the campaign started and people are still fired up and prepared to carry on protesting.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe protesters are going to continue until we get full travel reinstated,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Unite community coordinator for South Yorkshire Joe Rollin.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not giving up and we expect to continue protesting in January,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have justice on our side,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Arthur said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd we know that we need to fight in order to make sure things don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get any worse.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have begun to see ourselves as part of a much wider movement against railway privatisation and will be taking part in the nationwide protest against the fare increases on January 5th,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe privatisation of Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public transport was recently criticized by the shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 
\nHe described the rushed franchising process as a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bbetrayal of taxpayers and the travelling public\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and said \u00e2\u20ac\u015bDavid Cameron has put privatisation ahead of the public interest.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nBut Stagecoach boss Martin Griffiths \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who earned \u00c2\u01412.2m last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c said pensioner travel concessions was bad for business, and compared it to Tesco giving OAPs free food.<\/a><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t provide a service and not get properly paid for it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Griffiths said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor the management effort my team put in, we get underpaid.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nArthur rejected Griffiths\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 comments, arguing they were reflective of the ideology of privatisation.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015b[Griffiths\u00e2\u20ac\u2122] comments really show how the privatised companies are operating,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Arthur said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHoarding money at the top at the expense of providing decent services.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re optimistic that we will win the fight, yes,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThough a better word might be \u00e2\u20ac\u0098determined\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protestors, George Arthur, 64, and Tony Nuttall, 65, were arrested in June for obstructing police and fare evasion at Sheffield station during a rally against the axing of travel concessions for the elderly and disabled.   They were due to be trialled at Sheffield magistrates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 court on December 8 but the crown prosecution decided not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[76,198,25,197,173,115],"wps_subtitle":"As the charges against two pensioners are dropped, South Yorkshire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom riders are more determined than ever to win back their travel passes.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2526,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions\/2526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}