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Ben Jarman

@benjarman.uk

778 followers 648 following 51 posts

Criminologist and prison researcher. Scholar of punishment, fascinated by human extremes. Husband of better half, Quaker, lover of silence, servant of unquiet spaniel and toddler. benjarman.uk for more on my work.

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Ben Jarman @benjarman.uk · 03/04/2025

A letter from the Clerk of my Quaker meeting to the Meeting's MP, about the police raid at our Meeting House in Covent Garden last Thursday. It's a space I've used and treasured, since my first visit 20 years ago next month. Reading about the raid felt like learning that my home had been violated.

Screenshot of a letter (truncated to meet character limits):

Dear Rachel Blake,
I am sure that you will have heard in the press about the forcible entry by police into Westminster Quaker Meeting House on the evening of Thursday 27 March. This is the first time that there has been forcible entry into a Meeting House since the early days of Quakers during
the persecution of the late seventeenth century, and it has profoundly disturbed those who worship at our Meeting House as well as other community groups that hire rooms there.

We hope that you will take this matter up with the Home Secretary. What has happened at Westminster Meeting House is a – probably unintended - consequence of how the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest. Quakers are well known for speaking truth to power over many centuries, and this violation of our place of worship is an example of the erosion of our rights and those of many people far more vulnerable than us.

Westminster Quakers have worked hard to create a place of peace and calm in the centre of the City of Westminster. More than twenty police officers forced entry into the building although there were Quakers and staff on site who would have opened the door if they had rung the bell.
They damaged the door of our Grade 2 listed building and entered every room, disturbing our hirers including a therapy session and a life drawing class.

The police arrested six women who had hired a room for a Youth Demand social event. They were eating humous and bread sticks when the police arrived.

We are making a formal complaint to the police, and will be asking for compensation to cover the cost of repairing the door and entry system (although police attending said that compensation was unlikely because arrests were made).

We have been heartened by messages of support from Quakers around the world, and from people of faith and no faith across London and beyond.

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Ben Jarman @benjarman.uk · 19/12/2024

I saw this in the kitchen at the new office yesterday, and somehow felt just a little bit more at home.

An arch, pleasingly silly printed notice posted above a microwave in a shared office kitchen.

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