 On the 28th of March 2017 myself and 14 others cut through a fence on a northern side of Stanstead airport. On the night of March 28th 2017 along with 14 other people I cut a hole in the fence at Stanstead airport and gained access to a very remote part of the northern side of the airport. We had been watching this area for some time, watching the schedule and the routine of charter flight deportations. The flight was due to deport around 50 people to Nigeria and Ghana and we were there to stop it. We had two tripods with us and several lock-on tubes. We all went through this hole in the fence, walked across a piece of grass and towards the parked Boeing 767 which was a Titan Airways charter jet. As we got there four people went off and surrounded the front wheel of the plane and locked on. The rest of us went to an area behind the wing and we set up one of the tripods which had a banner saying no one is illegal and I climbed on top of it and made my way across a grassy knoll to a plane that was parked there tied myself around the front wheel with three other people and we stayed there for 10 hours. I was the last one arrested at nearly 8 a.m. They had to get the staircase that usually goes to the plane for people to board and they used that with officers in climbing equipment and they pretty much pulled me off the tripod and arrested me. Prior to the action I had known about these charter flight deportations and the deportation process as a whole and I knew them to be unlawful. We knew of at least three people that were on that flight that faced persecution, death, torture, violence. Were they to be deported? There are people who are being detained and deported when they have ongoing asylum appeals. They have ongoing cases and they're waiting for those cases to be heard. We knew the practice of charter flights to be a brutal one and to be one in which violence is kind of endemic. They use waist restraint belts, shackles, they restrain people's arms and legs. In watching these planes, in watching the process we knew that ambulances were called to the terminal just in case. There was the case of Jeremy Mubenga who was killed by two security guards when he was being deported back in 2010 but then the violence of the actual deportation, the things that people were facing when they reached the place that they were being taken to and so although we knew of three we knew that there would be many many more that were facing potentially death and so we had to act. As a result of our action we know that the plane was chartered two days later with around half the people on the flight simply because they couldn't get a big enough plane and then from the action until the start of our trial we knew that around 60 people had been deported and that 11 still remain in the country. Two of those people we now know have left to remain. Four of those people have been referred to the national referral mechanism for victims of human trafficking so that can be either domestic slavery or sex slavery. On any given day when a deportation is happening there could be numerous raids in homes, communities, people picked up at reporting centers and people coming from detention centers on multiple coaches to the airport but there's only one plane so that was strategic in understanding that in order to give people time to call their solicitor, give people time for their cases to be heard we had to stop that plane. People are when this action was being taken we knew that people were given five days notice before they're deported. In those five days they usually occur over a weekend so you've got two days left so you've got three days left for them to contact a solicitor. They might not even have a solicitor so they have to apply for legal aid. Legal aid probably takes one or two days there's usually a waiting list so it's unlikely that you would get legal advice in that moment so you've got a day 24 hours to try and stop your deportation it's not much time at all. Queer people when they're still in this country are forced to humiliate themselves to prove their sexuality because the home office kind of sits there and takes their blanket kind of baseline opinion is that these people are lying and then beyond that if they're not able to prove by various different archaic means their queerness they are then taken to places often where they haven't been for a very very very long time if at all where they face persecution because of their sexuality what they place corrective rape where they face imprisonment where they face torture or when they face death and so I think that it's particularly brutal for queer people and the notion of taking someone from a place of relative safety and I say that acknowledging the fact that we are far far far from perfect anywhere in the world for queer people to places where it's physically a crime to simply be that in of itself is inherently vicious. We were originally charged with aggravated trespass, criminal damage and a standstill bylaw against organizing a protest or a parade or a demonstration that inhibits the functioning of the airport. Upon arrest we were not told anything about the charge that we have now we were not told that we had put people in danger in the airport we were not told that anyone's safety was at risk. In July 2017 we were then told that the Attorney General had consented and that we were now being charged under the much harsher section one of the Aviation Maritime Security Act which comes with a maximum life imprisonment as opposed to aggravated trespass. Aggravated trespass is the charge which carries a maximum of three months in prison. This legislation which is part of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act came out of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing so this is really the first time this charge has been used on nonviolent protesters. The first time it was used was for a completely different scenario it was a man driving a helicopter erratically and intentionally into an airport control tower so you can see that it's I mean pretty different from the action we took which was essentially lying on the ground for ten hours and not moving um so yeah there's a there's a huge question as to why they're using this charge and we can't help but think it's because they don't want these actions to go forward we can't help but think it's because we've used our action and we've used the platform and the attention that we got to expose these flights and to expose them for what they are and they don't like that that's happening it's they happen in the middle of these flights happen in the middle of the night for the very purpose that they want to keep them hidden they want to keep them secret because they know that they're barely legal they know how violent they are and they know that they're part of a racist border practice which targets communities. We received such an unprecedented charge because we because our actions struck at the heart of Theresa May's legacy um our legacy as as home secretary is essentially what led to Amber Rudd having to resign it's it is the hostile environment it is the creation of a racist brutal set of laws and policies um and a toxic culture we've been the home office that has kind of been laid out across the newspapers over the last 12 months or so. So it came as a surprise that we were charged with this but then at the same time we did something that no one else has done and that is poke the bear in its cave I mean this is this is the home office. The prosecution and more widely the crown prosecution service the home office um and the establishment are trying to throw the book at us uh trying to make an example of us um every single day in court despite the home office not being on trial there have been home office barristers there taking notes there have been police there every single day much more than the normally would and I think this really gets to the the core of the issue and gets to the the core of what's going on here this isn't just about whether or not 15 people lying in a cold remote part of an airport somehow magically endangered the entire airport it's about the home office and striking to the heart of the legacy the evil legacy that was left behind by our now prime minister Theresa May. It's overblown and it's outrageous and um the history of nonviolent political protests in this in this country will change if they can use this charge instead of precedent and set case law for using it. The home office is not operating democratically the home office is frankly one of the worst institutions in this country that we have and so much of it needs to change and I think it was really hard to be interrogated on that but not be able to say well why don't you interrogate the very people who are like putting people on these planes and deporting them to their death pretty much um yeah sorry I don't think I answered that very well I wanted to say like we shouldn't be on trial we shouldn't be on trial the home office should be on trial because we're we're trying to do the exact opposite of what they're doing which is deporting people to their deaths it's hard when you're constantly battling you know every day is a fight in the courtroom. The thing that I've been thinking about a lot in these final few weeks of the trial is how and now I guess that situation is with people that have to engage with the immigration system and how lucky I am not only that at the end of this regardless of whether or not we get a custodial sentence regardless or not of whether we get found guilty I still have the right to remain I still have I still had the right to be in the country where I have my family and my networks and my life regardless of whether my liberty is taken away for a little bit or not I still come out to that the people engaging with the immigration system people being forced into detention being threatened with and then deported do not have that they don't have that luxury that right and often more often than not they don't have the luxury of a network of people around them who are there to pick up the pieces and you know we've had some incredible support of people that have been helping us there's no other place where the idea of solidarity and the idea of care and activist care really come in then at that point because because I don't I don't know how we could have gotten through this without without having those politics in place I've barely held it together and I have had a world of people standing directly behind me making sure I'm still upright and they're in court every single day what about the people that don't have that what about the people that are facing down this government alone this is one flight that we stopped of thousands of flights that have gone um it's really really critical that we continue to fight we continue to make sure the voices of those inside detention and those targeted by these deportations are heard I think the wind rush scandal and the changing of landscape and the changing of the landscape that came from that has given a lot of people hope um when we took the action we were doing it off the back of decades of hard hard work and labor and activism from people within detention centers people who had been organizing things like the hunger strikes and various different riots and people that have been organizing outside of detention centers and outside of the immigration system um you know alongside those facing persecution and we were you know we are only able to do our action because of them but now with the way in which it's kind of suddenly been become very mainstream it's a lot it becomes slightly easier I think in a way to have those conversations and to be able to kind of push people in positions of power to make bolder statements to make bolder claims to to make good on on the politics that they've kind of been acting on and I think that yeah it's if anything that's kind of come out of these last 18 months it feels like a brighter place to be fighting this fight than it was when we did it in a way I think it was so successful we stopped that plane and that's what we wanted to do it it is an action that takes a lot of energy um especially and time and privilege if you're going to take an action like that you don't really expect that you're going to be in the same you're going to be dealing with it 18 months late 18 months later and going through a nearly 10 week long crown court trial so it's it's a huge process and it's a huge kind of weight to carry but 11 people are still in the country and that is incredible and every day that we're sat in court listening to the prosecution interrogate us and berate us around the reasons why we took this action it it just reminds me of how right we were and how important it was someone who was meant to be on that flight his girlfriend was pregnant he was going to be deported and he was never going to see his child again and he managed to get bail and he managed to get his leave to remain and so now he's with his partner and he's with his children and that just makes all the difference