Help Stop Injustice

We are seeking pledges to protect a journalist from the prohibitive costs of suing the police for unlawful arrest.

Liz Smith is an award winning human rights documentary filmmaker. She documents the activities of protest groups and the efforts of the establishment to repress them. She was arrested while filming at a protest – handcuffed and held in custody before being released without charge. You can read more about what happened here.

She is claiming against the Metropolitan Police for aggravated and exemplary damages, false imprisonment and assault/battery and for breach of her Article 10 Convention rights.

Legal firm Hodge Jones & Allen have taken on her case on a no-win, no-fee basis. They elected to support this case on the basis that there were strong grounds for its success and in keeping with their ethos, as summed up by their mission statement to “use the law as a vehicle to pursue a good cause, fighting for your rights and engineer positive change for people in society”.

Three years later, The Met Police have still not agreed to settle the case and Liz and her legal team have now had to lodge the claim with the courts. There is a possibility that it could go all the way to trial. This means she is now exposed to a cost risk should she lose, as she would be obliged to pay the legal costs of the Met Police. That cost risk could be in the region of £80k which is clearly prohibitive for an individual wishing to take on the police and hold power to account. Without some protection from the possible costs Liz cannot proceed.

We are seeking pledges to help cover costs if Liz loses. We are not seeking money up front – just promises to help if Liz loses. These are promises you are morally committing to honour. If Liz’s claim proceeds to trial it could be a considerable time before the need to honour a pledge actually occurs, There is a very good chance this case will be won and pledges will not need to be honoured.

Please submit a pledge on the form opposite. We will store all pledges off line and post the total on this website. Thankyou for your interest and support.

Find out more about Liz Smith and her work here: Liz Smith

You can see the film Liz was taking at the point of her arrest here.