RIP Fathers 4 Justice

So, Fathers 4 Justice is no more

I thought they were pretty much done for a few months ago when a couple of us strolled over to Green Park to photograph their latest protest march. It was a poorly attended and sombre affair, with the actual protestors comfortably outnumbered by police and photographers,

It’s unlikely that their three year campaign did anything to advance the cause of British fathers in the divorce courts. However, what they did achieve, astonishingly well, was to demonstrate the fallacy behind the increased security measures being imposed in this country, particularly in London.

Yup the sight of beer-bellied middle-aged men dressed as Zorro climbing up, and prancing around, some of the supposedly most secure buildings in the country was always guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye.

They made the people who run the police look like complete dickheads.

My personal favourite was that video clip of bloke dressed as Batman walking up the Buckingham Palace with a huge step ladder, propping it up against the railings in broad daylight then climbing up onto one of the front balconies

The cunning swine.

Given that they were doing such a good job of making police chiefs look like idiots it comes as no surprise to hear that the group was infiltrated by undercover anti-terrorist officers. There is also a vague whiff of suggestion of a suspicion that it may even have been one of those undercover officers who started the talk about kidnapping Tony Blair’s son. That would go some way to explaining why the police were so pissed off that the kidnap story broke earlier this week.

We wouldn’t want people to start thinking that our security forces employ agent provocateurs to stir up trouble in activist groups would we?

Even if the police weren’t behind the dastardly ‘kidnap plot’ it seems rather unlikely than anyone was being serious. At the very least our police seem to have trouble distinguishing between a genuine terrorist threat and the drunken ramblings of a few embittered fathers in the pub after a hard day in the divorce courts. Or is anyone suggesting that the threat was real? As the press release on the Father’s 4 Justice site says …

The group say that ex members have reportedly been in contact with the Anti-Terrorist Unit SO13 from Scotland Yard who said that activists would be shot on sight if engaged in any protests in Westminster.

You can just picture the headlines can’t you

Batman executed in abortive kidnap attempt!

Zorro killed in police shoot out! He was wearing a heavy cape… kind of suspicious for this of time year!

Superman not so super after all!

That would make for an interesting IPCC investigation wouldn’t it?