A Squatter’s First Home
by Richard Twilton
Note: For best results, please click through the images at your own pace starting from the first image, and mouse over them to reveal the caption. Thanks.
On the 27 June 2009 a group of activists began their occupation of the Brentford constituency home of MP couple Ann and Alan Keen.
They claimed their actions were in protest at the number of people who the government cannot find accommodation for while homes go empty and MPs claim taxes for themselves.
The couple, dubbed by the press “Mr and Mrs Expenses”, were implicated in the MPs’ expenses row for claiming for a second home, a riverside Westminster apartment, when their first was less than ten miles from parliament.
After two weeks living in the house on the 10 July the group were summoned to Brentford County Court and served an Interim Possession Order (IPO), ordering them to vacate the premises in 24 hours or risk being removed by police.
With plans to resist the order after finding court documents riddled with errors the group returned to the house to prepare a party.
However, as the night progressed the house became packed with drunken revelers who spilled out onto the street and by the following morning the house was occupied only by police forensics officers following an alleged sexual assault.
Many of the windows had been smashed out and the street outside was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans of lager. The squatters had been removed by police in the early hours of the morning after the party got out of hand.
As a gesture of apology to locals who had supported them the squatters swept the street outside the house and after getting their belongings back from police said their goodbyes to neighbors and left.
Note: For best results, please click through the images at your own pace starting from the first image, and mouse over them to reveal the caption. Thanks.
On the 27 June 2009 a group of activists began their occupation of the Brentford constituency home of MP couple Ann and Alan Keen.
They claimed their actions were in protest at the number of people who the government cannot find accommodation for while homes go empty and MPs claim taxes for themselves.
The couple, dubbed by the press “Mr and Mrs Expenses”, were implicated in the MPs’ expenses row for claiming for a second home, a riverside Westminster apartment, when their first was less than ten miles from parliament.
After two weeks living in the house on the 10 July the group were summoned to Brentford County Court and served an Interim Possession Order (IPO), ordering them to vacate the premises in 24 hours or risk being removed by police.
With plans to resist the order after finding court documents riddled with errors the group returned to the house to prepare a party.
However, as the night progressed the house became packed with drunken revelers who spilled out onto the street and by the following morning the house was occupied only by police forensics officers following an alleged sexual assault.
Many of the windows had been smashed out and the street outside was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans of lager. The squatters had been removed by police in the early hours of the morning after the party got out of hand.
As a gesture of apology to locals who had supported them the squatters swept the street outside the house and after getting their belongings back from police said their goodbyes to neighbors and left.