Squatting -- the real story

Mounting opposition: property owners and the media attack squatting

"While there is a large pool of empty property, public and private, it is difficult to see a reduction in squatting. The best that can be expected is to contain it..." (GLC Director of Housing & Maintenance) report 20 January 1976 Hg 746)
"There is no question of the Corporation entering into any agreement with squatters, or negotiating with them, as they are illegal occupiers." ( Public Relations Department, Bristol Corporation, November 1973)
"The high incidence of squatting should not be considered as a "problem" which by definition is capable of solution, but as a 'condition' to be alleviated rather than cured. While society rejects the criminalisation of squatting and prohibits the use of private force, the practice can never be stopped. Local authorities must, therefore, use a combination of avoidance and prevention, together with a variety of cures, in order to reduce the incidence. In this combination it is avoidance and prevention which lead the way..." (Report by Co-ordinator of Housing, Islington Council, 20 February 1975)

By the end of 1975 unlicensed squatting had almost established itself as a routine method of finding housing in the short term. A number of housing officials stated in private that squatting had to be tolerated, quite simply because it was impossible to envisage any alternative for the estimated 40-50,000 squatters. The Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) reported in a press release that housing aid centres, social service departments, citizens advice bureaux, probation services and even the police were regularly referring people to them. Brixton Women's Centre received as many as 30-40 referrals in one week from Lambeth Social Services Department.
Official attitudes towards squatting were, however, paradoxical. While there was often a measure off acceptance of squatting as inescapable, even necessary, there was also strong determination to bring it under control. As an officer's report in November 1974 to Lambeth Council's Housing Committee put it:"The council is faced with a situation which is clearly out of control and the need is to bring it under control as quickly as possible".
Thus the explosive growth of squatting during 1974-75 was accompanied by an immense increase in opposition unparalleled since 1969. As most squatting took place in council property, the most vociferous opposition tended to come from local authorities. They were generally even less willing to negotiate with the 'new wave' of unlicensed squatters than they had been with family squatting groups particularly as there were now more young, single, and sometimes unorthodox, people squatting. Most councils remained unwilling to negotiate with either type fearing that to 'give in' would cause a flood of 'queue jumpers' to descend on their area in search of housing. Everywhere that there was squatting, at least one councilor would warn of the danger of becoming a 'soft touch' for squatters. A policy of immediate eviction was preferred in most areas.
The Labour leader of Tower Hamlets in East london, Paul Beasley, echoed the attitude of many councilors when through the paper he declared 'all out war on squatters' in February 1975: "We are not going to be taken for a ride; we have had enough and we are bloody well not going to have any more."1
Squatting was a headache for councillors and officers; it was exposing the inadequacies of local authority housing programmes and was seen as a threat to some of the established institutions of housing. A Department of the Environment (DoE) consultation paper put it this way:
"Squatting raises the wider and very real problem of the extent to which local authorities are having their position, as elected bodies answerable to the general electorate, undermined. To the extent that squatters are attempting to buck the system, they clearly call into question the traditional democratic basis of current procedures, founded on the rule of law and its ordered administration."2
Above all, squatting was seen as a threat to that basic pinion of council bureaucracy - the housing waiting list. In effect, squatters have generally opted out of, or been excluded from, the housing queue as surveys have consistently shown. They have made use of properties that would otherwise have been empty and have not taken over houses intended for people on waiting lists. For the vast majority of people whose names were on it, the waiting list had become precisely that - a list upon which you waited...and waited...and waited. Many councils simply could not cope with the record number of people looking to them for homes. Unwilling to call for the structural social changes needed to supply housing for everyone, they made excuses for their failure to act, and instead attempted to clamp down upon people who challenged this failure by squatting.
The DoE attempted in 1975 to 'get an agreed approach to the squatting problem by local housing authorities and the Department, and to develop a joint policy.'2 But no such policy materialised. Instead councils employed a variety of techniques in their efforts to prevent, control, or halt squatting and during 1973-76 these were tested and refined in various areas by both Labour and Conservative administrations.
The Labour-controlled GLC's policy was typical of many authorities. In June 1974 it announced the first of several 'new policies' towards squatters. In June 1974 it announced the first of several 'new policies' towards squatters. It intended to be 'humane but firm'' and expressed its determination that squatters should not mess up its plans any longer. A GLC report estimated that 2,000 squatters were occupying 390 GLC dwellings.3
'Any attempt to mount a drive against all squatters at one time would wholly beyond the present resources',4reported the Head of the Housing Department and thus the 'humane' aspect of the policy was that people already squatting would be allowed to remain until the buildings were needed. But this did not seem to happen in practice and many squatters all over London were evicted without offers of alternative accommodation and frequently well before the buildings were needed for development.
In the east End, for instance, on Mercer's Estate, Stepney, there were 69 squatted flats as well as 177 empty ones - whose occupants faced eviction under the new GLC policy. For three years tenants had slowly been moved out in preparation for demolition, but the DoE then imposed a preservation order on the flats and so new plans had to be drawn up.
Yet the GLC went through this unnecessary eviction making a complete mockery of the statement by its Housing Committee chairperson, Gladys Dimson, that:'Our policy is to use every possible empty house awaiting redevelopment.'
The 'firm' aspect of the GLC's policy involved tightening security on empty houses to prevent any further squatting. Boarding up houses was not proving successful as a deterrent and the GLC resorted to gutting, a term used for 'ripping up floorboards, knocking out windows, taking down internal doors, moving or destroying sanitary fittings, etc.'5 The 'etc' in the statement actually concealed the most objectionable parts of an already objectionable practice e.g. pouring concrete down lavatory basins or drains, sawing through support joists and breaking roof tiling. Other public authorities also resorted to gutting. The Crown Commissioners not only smashed washbasins and lavatory bowls but welded metal windows shut. Although squatters proved adept at repairing gutted houses, this municipal vandalism was responsible for the destruction of thousands of useable homes.
Councils also increased harassment of squatters through gas and electricity cut-offs taking advantage of legal confusion on the issue.
Bengali squatters in the East End suffered particularly through gas supplies being disconnected in properties where gas was the only safe form of power for heating or cooking as the electrical wiring was unable to carry high loads. In 1973 the GLC refused the London Electricity Board access to houses in Charrington Street, Kings Cross, to prevent squatters obtaining a power supply. It was a tactic employed successfully again and again by property owners as an effective form of backdoor-eviction.
In Bristol, for example, it was used successfully by both private owners and the local authority. Squatting first occurred in Bristol in 1972, when four houses owned by a company were occupied. The company instructed the electricity board not to connect electricity supplies, and the coldness of winter helped minimise resistance to eviction. Later, Bristol Council used the same tactic against people squatting houses due to be demolished for a road renewal scheme in Ashley Road. The denial of electricity supplies again reduced the will of the squatters to fight eviction.
Squatters in several areas attempted to compel their local gas and electricity boards to provide supplies by appealing to the magistrates Court and in Bristol, squatters went to the High Court. But all such cases were lost by the squatters and the chances of obtaining services varied greatly from area to area depending on the attitude of the local boards and the owners of the squatted properties. Minister of Energy Tony Benn stated in Parliament in 1975 that squatters would be treated the same as any other occupiers.6 but in spite of this property owners continued to be able to deny them gas and electricity supplies. Indeed the DoE, three months before Benn's statement, had suggested that to deter squatters it 'would be willing to approach statutory undertakings centrally, as a supplement to local approaches by the local authorities to the boards in their areas, to establish that they would be ready to consider not making supplies available to houses notified to them by a local authority.'7
A variety of other attempts were made to replace squatting through use of the law. Bradford City Council, for example, tried unsuccessfully to get damages for trespass, costs for 'use and occupation' ( which amounted to rent ) and other injunctions restraining named individuals from squatting8- Other authorities, especially outside London, where more often had no legal advice or support, tried other tactics like applying for large sums of money in costs against squatters when they obtained possession orders. Bath City Council threatened squatters in an old stone cottage which had been condemned as 'unfit for human habitation' that if they did not leave they would be liable to fines of £100 - plus £20 per every day they remained in the premises - under public health legislation. The idea that one could be evicted for the sake of one's health added a bizarre twist.
There were cases of children of squatters being refused places at local schools and being denied access to the refuse collection service. In 1973 Camden Council even tried to ban squatters from using library facilities by issuing a directive instructing staff that squatters were not classes as 'residents' and were therefore not entitled to borrow books.9 Attempts were made to prevent squatters obtaining advice from council-aided groups. In June 1976, for instance, Holloway Housing Aid Centre received a renewal of its £17,000 grant from Islington council only on condition that it guaranteed not to assist squatters. Islington Council in fact attempted to disguise its empty property by putting up curtains in its windows. Then, having decided that 'squatting invasions of Islington' were being organised by 'certain notorious persons', considered, in February 1975, taking out injunctions stopping these people from trespassing in Council property. This addition to the arsenal of anti-squatting measures was only rejected when Islington realised that the 'notorious persons' list would have to be supplied with complete lists of empty Council property or otherwise they could claim to be unaware when they were in breach of the injunction.10
Council responses were cynical in the extreme. To lower squatters public status, housing departments would sometimes claim that squatted houses were just about to be let. Squatters were therefore seen to be creating hardship, and quite often left voluntarily. On one occasion in 1975 Calderdale Housing Department allocated a house in Royal terrace, Hebden Bridge, to a woman and her three children ten minutes after hearing it had been squatted. The flat had been empty for a year and a half. Six months previously the same woman had asked the Council if she could live there and had been told it was not for letting. In fact, the squatters moved out to make way for her but she did not take up the offer. (Some of the houses in that street were still empty in 1980)
One of the most ironic deterrents was dreamt up by Conservative-controlled Brighton which had maintained a tough line, involving the immediate eviction of all squatters since 1969. In the summer of 1973, a new campaign began in the town and the Council, echoing the blinkered assessment of the Brighton Evening Argus that 'squatting is a social disease which breaks out at intervals', introduced a new punishment. Eugenia Griffin, and her 5 year old son, who had been sleeping on the beach before squatting, were not only evicted but also struck off the housing waiting list.
Banning squatters from waiting lists became quite a common tactic, the hypocrisy of which was illustrated in Southwark, South London, in 1976. On 8 March, the Senior Lettings Officer of the Council wrote to a Mr orchard as follows:
"With reference to your application for housing assistance, it is observed that you are illegally squatting...In view of this irregularity, it will not be possible to place your name on the housing waiting list, and you are advised to vacate immediately, since only in the event of your being able to find alternative accommodation in the Borough of Southwark will you be able to register with this authority for alternative accommodation."
A similar letter was sent to Kathleen Hoey, her husband and children on 29 October. Yet only the previous day, a social worker in the same council had written to the Camberwell squatting group to which Mr Orchard and the Hoeys belonged as follows:
"This is to introduce Colin Myton who urgently needs accommodation. He is staying with friends at the moment but must leave immediately. I hope you can help."

Cops and Squatters
The police, under heavy pressure from property owners, sometimes attempted to bring criminal charges against squatters, particularly in small towns. In July 1975, for example, three squatters in Lancashire were charged under the 1824 Vagrancy Act with 'wandering abroad', lodging in an unoccupied building, failing to give a good account of themselves and failing to apply for accommodation when directed to a reasonable place of shelter'. More commonly, charges of criminal damage or theft were laid, although provided that squatters had not actually taken or damaged anything in entering premises, these were often defeated in court. Nonetheless, the eagerness with which many police officers sought possible charges was indicative of their hostile attitude to squatters. Police in Twickenham, Surrey, took the unprecedented step of announcing figures showing how many squatters had been arrested over a certain period. These figures were not even a true reflection of the level of crime among to squatters as they related to arrests not convictions. Needless to say similar figures relating to council tenants or owner-occupiers were not produced.
The police harassed squatters, too, through raids in search of drugs or, on occasion, even bombs and firearms. The number of raids and the number of people involved was disproportionate in relation to the number of drug-taking squatters. For instance, in the same week in September 1977 80-strong police contingents, spearheaded by the Special Patrol Group raided the squatted Elizabeth Garrett Anderson maternity home in Hampstead, North london11and squatted houses in Little Venice, west london, both early in the morning. At the maternity home, the police kicked down almost every door in the building, including one which fell on top of a 58-year old woman, causing a face wound which needed four stitches. Eleven of the 40 people living in the squat were arrested but only three were charged - all for possession of small amounts of cannabis. In Little venice, people who did not get out of bed immediately also had their doors kicked down but no one was arrested.
The role of police in drugs raids on squatted premises had less to do with maintenance of law and order than with intimidation. magistrates handed over warrants to search squats for drugs without question and the police often took advantage of the lack of public sympathy for squatters by treating them as they liked. When the SPG kicked down the door to a squatted flat in Emmalisa Court, Islington, during a drugs raid in 1975, they were asked why they had not knocked first. The answer was 'It's more fun this way.'
In addition there was a marked lack of interest on the part of the police when squatters themselves were victims of crime. During the summer of 1976 Bengali squats in the East end were firebombed, as were squatted houses in other parts of London - West Hampstead, Brent and Kentish Town.
No 220 Camden High Street, which was being used as a base by community groups, came under harassment from the National Front and on one occasion a shotgun was fired through the window. The North London Gay Centre, a squatted house in Finsbury park was attacked by a bottle-throwing gang of NF youths. These are just a few examples of the incidents against squatters which were not effectively investigated by the police. The covert police attitude appeared to be that squatters were 'fair game' and not entitled to protection of the law because they had put themselves outside it by squatting in the first place. When it was arranged for squatters in Camden to give lectures on squatting to the local force to increase 'understanding', eight policemen complained in a letter to the police magazine, The Job: 'The obvious continuation of this policy must be that within the foreseeable future we shall be lectured by thieves, prostitutes and the like.'12
In the courts, a series of regressive rulings eroded loopholes that had been used over previous years ( Chapter 14 details this gradual erosion of the law ). Possession orders could now, in theory, be obtained in as little as a week but in practice the courts were always so clogged up that generally they took several weeks. More significantly, possession orders could now be used against unnamed occupants, preventing squat-swopping and they could not be suspended without the owner's consent. It was also ruled that it was legal, if inadvisable, for an owner to evict without a court order.
The tighter legal context mad it increasingly difficult to mount an effective defence to a possession order in court but did not satisfy many opponents of squatting for whom substantial legal reforms seemed long overdue. Since 1971, the Law Commission had been working on a review of the criminal law with a brief to reframe the law relating to trespass. In 1974 the Law Commission published a proposal that any act of trespass should be made illegal, once the trespasser had been asked to leave. In response, the Campaign Against a Criminal Trespass Law (CACTL) was set up by All London Squatters. After much opposition to the proposals, both from CACTL and from diverse organisations outside the squatting movement, ranging from the police to the trade union movement, the Law Commission reported again with less Draconian proposals that were to make squatting more difficult but not illegal.

Trouble With Neighbours
Not all hostility towards squatters emanated from property owners, and on several occasions councils evicted squatters because they claimed to be under strong pressure from local residents who accused the squatters of causing a nuisance.13There is a joke about squatters, currently in different forms in several countries. Residents in a neighborhood are supposed to have complained about noise from squatted houses keeping them awake at night. The squatters are reputed to have said in reply that the neighbours woke them up early in the morning by revving their car engines as they left for work.
It is a humorous tale not entirely devoid of truth. The joke was almost entirely mirrored by events in August 1974 in Deal, Kent, where residents complained about cars revving up and doors slamming late at night. They blamed it on the longhaired squatters who had moved into the street. the local papers quoted squatters as saying: ' We don't have cars. the other morning we were woken up by a neighbour telling us to stop the noise. We had been asleep until then.'14
Normal tenure patterns tend to segregate different classes and types of people. Squatting has often broken down these divisions enabling working class people to live in wealthy neighbourhoods or young single people to live in areas of council housing normally restricted to the elderly or families with children. This has resulted in occasional clashes of lifestyle as at Grosvenor Rd in Twickenham.
Squatters first moved into the street in October 1972. Bovis, the building firm, had acquired over 20 properties in the area for development but did not have any immediate plans. After the arrival of the first squatters, the company decided to let the London and Quadrant Housing Association use all the empty homes. But the Association was completely unprepared to receive 20 dilapidated semi-gutted houses, so that over the next few months more unlicensed squatters moved in. By April 1973, the character of this affluent and spacious street had been totally altered by the 'invasion' of over 100 squatters. Meanwhile, Alderman Hall, the Leader of Conservative-controlled Richmond Council and Housing Committee Chairperson George Tremlett, organised a campaign to get the squatters evicted. They were encouraged in pursuit of this aim by the fact that two Labour Councillors had given support and encouragement to the squatters. Tremlett accused Labour councillor Lady Conor of encouraging ;riff-raff' into the borough and warned:'The borough is fast developing a cancer in its midst, a cancer that could dangerously pollute the quality of our life and the moral well-being of our children.'15 ( Ironically, in October 1977, the then GLC Housing Chairperson, George Tremlett gave licenses to over 5,000 squatters under an amnesty.)
What was this cancer? The Richmond and Twickenham Times published its answer in a fanciful article in April 1973 under the heading,'GARDEN OF EDEN HIPPIES SPREAD WAVE OF TERROR'. Hippies, according to a few unnamed local residents, had `turned day into night' with wild parties going on all night in a huge communal garden: `Young revellers danced naked to the music of live groups'; the area was `a hotbed of drugs'; the squatters had an `elaborate police warning system', consisting of a scout near the police station blowing a whistle, the sound being picked up by a bugler in a tree who immediately relays the alarm. The residents the paper claimed to have interviewed were said to be so terrorised by squatters that they were afraid to give their names.
What had happened, as in other parts of the country both then and since, was that among the squatters there were a minority of anti-social people who showed as little respect for their neighbours' way of life as the neighbours did for theirs. The ethic of tolerance and non-interference, so often prevalent amongst squatters, made it difficult for the `community' of squatters to try to control the undesirable elements. As a group the squatters appeared different to other residents. They moved into an area as it was declining and rather than their presence being seen as symptomatic of that decline, it became seen as the cause of it. In addition, some residents had developed a sense of outrage at the idea of people living rent-free while they were paying high rents in similar houses nearby.
Rumours circulated among residents about squatters and were perpetuated by the lack of social contact between the two groups. The truth got distorted and lies were believed. Every piece of rubbish dumped in the street and every car door slammed late at night was blamed on squatters. What began as the residents' concern over the deterioration of the area, turned into resentment against squatters who became the scapegoats for everything wrong with central Twickenham. The mobilisation of that resentment was not spontaneous and its direction against the squatters rather than the developers was largely determine by the intervention of local worthies like Hall at Tremlett and the press.
Events in Twickenham in 1973 are an example of how the stereotyped image of squatters can carry more weight than the facts. The squatter was seen as single, unemployed, lazy and from outside Twickenham. Yet a survey of 18 houses in September 1973 found: that there were 16 children squatting as well as 112 adults; that 61 per cent of the adults were working and only 10 per cent had not worked since moving into the squat and that while 12 months earlier there had been no squats, 67 per cent of the squatters had lived in Twickenham for over a year and 13 per cent had lived there for over 15 years."
During 1973, conflict between squatters and other local people in Stepney, East London, led to several nasty incidents. Squatters had their windows smashed and were subjected to various forms of harassment including physical violence. Houses from which squatters had been evicted and which were not due for immediate demolition were se on fire by local people to prevent other squatters moving in.
In Camden, too, conflict erupted in violence a few occasions. On 19 April 1973, local 'vigilantes' threw out squatters from No 35 Marsden Street, the only house in the road with a bathroom. Camden Council had stated that it intended to use the house for a family off the waiting list but after the squatters had gone, Camden's first and only act was to tin up the windows and doors. A few weeks later the Francis family who lived next door and who had been prominent in kicking out the squatters apparently had a change of heart. They issued a statement saying that they had been led by the Council and that in future they would work alongside squatters to fight bad housing. But the squatters in this particular case must have been unusually patient and determined and the Francis family particularly open to discussion and argument. Very often the divide between squatters and neighbours has been too irrational and wide to allow for any conciliation. When squatters move into a street they are public trial. They are observed in a way that few legitimate occupiers ever experience, and their every action is noted and commented upon. They walk a knife-edge between acceptance (and support) and hostility (and opposition). By 1975, a growing number of squatters were on the wrong side of that edge. Their failure to take sufficient account of the feelings of neighbours, whether reasonable or not, was increasingly damaging to their cause.

Media myths
What really undermined the basis of support for squatters was a vicious and systematic campaign against them conducted by the press and helped, at times, by various politicians and other interested parties.
At the beginning of 1975, angered by the resistance of squatters, particularly in Elgin Avenue, West London, and unwilling to give in to demands for rehousing, the GLC organised a press conference to expose `smash and grab' squatters. This was a `new breed' of squatter - allegedly holding up redevelopment schemes by refusing to move out, taking over houses and flats meant for people
off the waiting list and damaging property. To support the last point the GLC produced photographs of damage, said to have been done by squatters, to new property in Westminster. These allegations, based on a few isolated incidents, received widespread coverage and set the tone for the whole year. During the summer, anti-squatter hysteria reached new heights. As in 1969, it was the Sunday People which led the way, with a series of three articles, published in consecutive weeks in June, containing all the classic ingredients of sensationalism:
'An Englishman's home used to be his castle . . . but today he stands a good chance of having it taken over by Britain's growing army of sqatters. It used to be the long-vacant premises of property speculators that were the targets of of the live-for-nothing invaders.
Now it's ANYONE'S home . . . even a family coming back from holiday can find itself locked out, with strangers in occupation. Squatting,1975, is highly organised, nationwide, spreading rapidly and DANGEROUS."
The articles painted a picture of a sinister, sophisticated and unscrupulous squatting movement, equipped with its own legal services, radio station, newspapers, estate agency, police force and health service. Eager to take over any dwelling, whether empty or not, the squatters were portrayed as hardened political militants who lived rent-free on social security handouts, using the homeless for their own ends. Upper-class or university-educated squatters were given particular attention as weretwo 'glamorous, polished' women squatting in Cheltenham. The articles emphasised violence (resisting eviction), squalor (the condition of squatted properties), drugs (allegedly used regularly in squats), and even sex (one being headed `How a Naked Blonde Beat the Bailiffs').
One month later, The Times letters column became the focus for more damaging and more had influential allegations against squatters. On 11 July tern who invade private homes and the reluctance1975, a letter was published from a Miss Elizabeth Harper writing from an address in Northumberland who claimed she had just 'had the appalling experience of turning squatters out of our home in Kensington, left locked and secure three weeks earlier. The squatters arrogantly assumed the right to break in, to live in our home with them dogs, to sleep in our beds in our sheets, to daub crude drawings in black on our walls, to use our food, light, heat and telephone, to steal £300 worth of antique furniture and above all to dispose of all our treasured possessions.'
According to Miss Harper, the police had refused to take any action and she warned that if the police continued to turn a blind eye, many Times readers could return from holiday to find their homes squatted.
Three weeks later, a letter was published from the Metropolitan Police Solicitor which pointed out that the story set out in Miss Harper's letter `was not in accordance with the facts' on police records. Amongst other things, `Miss Harper' was in fact a Mrs Such who claimed to be a barrister,who had not been on holiday and whose house in Kensington was up for sale. (A Frederick Such, presumably Miss Harper's husband, was resident at the same address in Northumberland and practiced as a barrister in Newcastle.) In other words,it was not her `home'. In addition, when police officers had gone to the house and told the squatters the house was occupied, they left `without any incident occurring'. The telephone which the squatters had allegedly used had been previously disconnected.
The Police Solicitor commented: `I think you will agree that the facts I have set out present a very different picture from the facts set out in the letter to The Times and that the letter is, to say the least, disingenuous.'' 18 In less polite terms, she was lying. (When contacted by the press, Mrs Such declined to comment on Mr Lane's letter.)
But the damage had been done. In the intervening three weeks, there had been a spate of letters, articles and editorials condemning squatting and demanding tough legislation. Three days after the publication of the Harper letter, another one appeared from the Labour Chairperson of the GLC Housing Management Committee, Tony Judge. After stating `Miss Elizabeth Harper's letter rightly
drew attention to the illegal behaviour of squatters who invade private homes and the reluctance of the police to take action against them', Judge wenton to claim that squatters in Elgin Avenue had held up a GLC housing development, designed for people in `real need', for a year, and that the`cost to the public had been incredibly high'. After describing them as 'worthless and articulate scroungers whom..the country has no conceivable duty to house', it concluded: `It is past time we cleared up the absurdities in the law to reassert the rights of owners, be they public or private: '19
The next day, the Under-Sheriff of London, Alistair Black, gave an account in The Times of the problems faced by his officers under the current law due to the sophistication of squatters' methods of defence: `In our view, if effective enforcement procedures are available with a sanction of arrest and possible imprisonment, the scourge of the squatter will be removed from the already over-troubled and over-burdened housing scene. 20
Much of the press coverage relied on the `facts' as stated in the Harper letter to assert that squatters were now taking over people's homes while they were on holiday, or even out shopping, and indeed this became a widely believed myth. And despite the fact that there were no verified cases of this occurring - and that the police confirmed they would intervene if it ever did some astute businessmen even offered insurance policies against the possibility. Lloyds, for instance, offered full cover of £5,000 including the cost of alternative accommodation and legal fees for £5 a year, and many other organisations including the Automobile Association introduced similar policies against the possibility. Lloyds, for instance, offered full cover of £5,000 including the cost of alternative accommodation and legal fees for £5 a year, and many other organisations including the Automobile Association introduced similar schemes. It was an easy way to make money.
A detailed study of press coverage found that the number of column inches per day rose dramatically during 1975 and that there was a substantial increase of `anti-squatting' articles as against 'Pro, squatting' and `neutral' ones. 21 Coverage focused on five typical representations of squatters.
· Deviants in lifestyle, political views, attitudes or behaviour
· Queue jumpers preventing `genuine' people from being housed
· Parasites who cost the ratepayers money
· Cheeky and greedy people indulging in a lifestyle which is the prerogative of the property owning rich (by occupying mansions and luxury homes)
· A danger to the mortgaged middle class (by occupying their homes)
There were frequent calls for tougher legal measures. The Times, for example, editorialised: ` . . it has become increasingly clear that the act of squatting is no longer earned out by, or on behalf of deprived and homeless people. The new generation of squatters are not by any test poor (or if they are, they need not be). They are usually articulate and sophisticated, and their motives are often cynical in the extreme. At best they are people whose purpose is to live cheaply at other people's expense. But many of them are motivated politically. Their aim is not to improve the lot of the homeless (indeed, by their action they are achieving precisely the opposite) but to make political points about the concept of private property, the capitalist system and so on...
What is particularly disturbing, as correspondence to The Times over the past week has shown, is that the position is getting worse. No longer content with taking over empty properties, some have taken to squatting in obviously occupied houses. What is needed is a law aimed specifically at illegal squatters . The government should urgently consider bringing in such legislation.'22
An editorial in the Daily Telegraph even went so far as to say that squatting was a direct threat to the survival of society and described how `innumerable houses up and down the country are now in illegal occupation by organised gangs of thugs layabouts and revolutionary fanatics. . In reality the motive for most of this squatting is either political - a settled purpose of subverting public order - or simple greed and aggression. 23
the most alarming or sinister `stories'. The Daily Mail decided that `Many thousands ? in all probability the majority ? of squatters . . . are freeloaders and layabouts . . . Strong laws are needed to prevent the forces of anarchy which are undermining the democratic processes of our country."' And a London Evening News `investigation' culminated with this editorial comment: `An Evening News investigation has vividly revealed the true face of the new breed of squatters who seem to have taken over Central London. And what a nasty face it turns out to be. Many of them are foreign scroungers here for the social security and free accommodation... It is no good the government waiting for the Law Commission report before amending the law to deal with these housing bandits. By the time MPs get back from their summer holidays, how many more of the world's waifs and strays will be enjoying their free stays in London?'24

Effect of media image
Some MPs did, in fact, respond to this media onslaught. At its height a number of MPs called upon the government to take immediate action against squatters. A Commons motion tabled by Conservative Hugh Rossi on 17 duly, 1975, called for legislation making it an offence to squat. One hundred and fifteen MPs signed it and at least two attempted to introduce Private Member's Bills on similar lines during the summer. In reality, as several surveys showed. squatters were totally unlike the media's presentation of them.
· The vast majority of squatters improved their properties rather than damaged them.
· Squatters did not take over other people's homes while they were out.
· Squatters rarely prevented people in greater need from being housed because most squatted houses were not intended for immediate use.
· And in cases where squatters were accused of trying to hold up development schemes, this action was usually part of a wider campaign against anti-social developments.
Anyway squatters could easily be evicted through the courts when property was required and such delays were insignificant in comparison with even the ordinary delays common to large development schemes. For example, in Elgin Avenue where Tony Judge had claimed that squatters held up development work for 12 months, building work did not start for seven months after the squatters eventually moved out. While there undoubtedly were isolated cases of squatters damaging property, taking drugs and being `revolutionary fanatics', `foreigners', `articulate scroungers', `upper class' and so on, the vast majority of squatters did not fit these mythical media stereotypes.
In the desperate search for sensationalism, the press further reinforced these myths in the public mind. One of the most malicious stories appeared long after the summer 1975 coverage had petered out. The London Evening News headlined a story, `SQUATTERS WON'T QUIT CRASH WIDOW'S HOME'. It began with the sentence `Two squatters who have deprived a Moorgate tube disaster victim of a new home, today refused to get out.'26 A subsequent investigation showed that the woman was not a Moorgate crash victim but had been hurt in another tube accident six years ago. Nor had she been offered a `new' home - it was a poor tandard prefab, on a site where there were numerous other empty prefabs. The squatters had stressed their willingness to move into one of these to make way for her. Finally, the squatters had a small child and thus the local Council had a duty to house them.
The images conjured up by the media had an effect on all squatters. Neighbours who had previously been helpful or ambivalent
became hostile. Children who lived in squats were picked on or ostracised by other children at school, and known squats were `forgotten' by refuse collectors (thus fuelling the myth that squatters lived in squalor ). Monica Ferman, secretary of Fairhazel Tenants Association in Camden, described how one tenant had, by mid-1975, `given up almost all forms of work and relaxation, as an obsession with squatters had taken over his life'. The tenant once spotted
`an unfamiliar pushchair standing outside his building. Purple with fury . . . he rushed into the back garden dustbins with the pushchair. Much soothed by this positive gesture, he went upstairs to join his family. A minute later our tenant shot out of the house again to retrieve the pushchair, and he made it just in time to help his wife's best friend tuck up her two year-old toddler and wave them away.'27
People with little direct experience of squatters developed wild ideas about their lifestyle. One Wandsworth resident wrote in the local paper `They are in the bingo halls as soon as the doors open; also the betting shops and have a taxi to take them. The Council encourage them by handing out keys to enter these flats and houses. It is about time something was done about it.'28
Private property owners became more confident in dealing with squatters. With the possibility of bad publicity largely dissipated, wasteful and harsh policies could be implemented with little fear of public disapproval. In July 1976, for instance, 50 people were forced out of the squatted Cumberland Hotel, Earls Court, by 15 workmen with four Alsatians. Dispensing with such niceties as a possession order, the owner intructed the workmen to board up all windows and doors. Faced with the choice of leaving or being incarcerated, the squatters chose to move on. In Brighton, where most squatting was in private property, a squatters union was set up specifically as a defence against evictions which were often carried out violently by people without possession orders.
Local authorities too made use of squatters' low public status. In Hebden Bridge, for instance, the linking of 20 long-haired squatters living in old millworkers' cottages in Queens Terrace with the mythical evil beings created in the media made the owners, Calderdale Council, less willing to negotiate and more able to evict. With more insight than other newspapers. The Guardian remarked, `. . . the Council has a preconceived image of them as scruffy, ill-mannered individuals who have been conveniently lumped together under the squatting label 29
In fact, many of these squatters had previously been private tenants in the same cottages at Queens Terrace prior to their purchase by the Council in 1974. Initial suspicion by other local residents had gradually benn replaced by a limited degree of acceptance and support.
Indeed, the squatters secured 500 signatures to a petition asking that they be allowed to stay and gained the backing of the local Labour Party, the MP for the area, the senior social worker and the local clergy, both Methodist and Catholic. They also produced detailed plans for the houses and requested that they be allowed to rent or buy them, as they were unsuitable for families from the local authority's waiting list.
Unfortunately, the Tory controlled Calderdale was not impressed. When squatters prevented their case in a formal deputation, Councilor Raymond Pearson walked out saying `I do not see it as part of my duty as an elected representive to talk to people who are occupying houses illegally. Nevertheless, it was agreed to renovate the houses instead of demolishing them as originally planned which the squatters saw as a partial victory. But they were not to be rented to the squatters as the Council's stated policy towards m was that they should be sent back to where they came from. Media-inspired antipathy enabled the hard-line proponents of squatting to mobilise support, as Peace News reported: `Local Liberal and Tory councillors/businessmen began to exploit the situation to stir up antagonisms."' The squatters were accused of living in disgusting conditions and scrounging off social security. By November 1976 there was talk of a vigilante group of locals preparing to throw out the squatters and the Council felt confident enough to evict, refusing to rehouse even a mother and child, despite a directive from the court judge that they should do so. Housing Committee Chairperson, Robert Sunderland, had already declared defiantly: `There is no way that we are going to rehouse these leeches on society.'
Not only did Calderdale Council clamp down on all squatting locally, but councillors and officers went so far as to travel to London to lobby parliament (successfully) for an amendment to the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, then in Parliament. Nicknamed the 'Calderdale Clause' it allows councils to refuse accommodation to people who 'deliberately make themselves homeless'. This sufficiently ambiguous wording allows Calderdale Council among others to continue avoiding itsb obligation to the homeless. Councils showed little enthusiasm for negotiating with squatters or for trying to find ways of housing them and were increasingly prepared to use force to evict them. In Islington, for example, 17 people were arrested when 200 police and 20 bailiffs evicted four houses in Charteris Road in June 1976, despite the fact that a survey had identified a hundred Council-owned empty dwellings in the immediate area.
A GLC report acknowledged the way in which the media prepared the ground for a crackdown on squatting: 'There is no doubt that, as a result of the recent press campaign against squatting, publlic interest in the matter has been aroused. It is likely that there would be public support for more positive (sic) action on the part of local authorities in tackling the problem.'32
And taking the lead, the GLC held yet another press conference at the beginning of 1976 at which yet another scandal was revealed. Squatters, so the unsubstantiated claim went, were employing a ' Rent-a-Kid' system, whereby squatters facing eviction `borrowed' children of friends to get rehoused. 33
The media campaign of 1975 and subsequent press fabrications about squatting were inspired by a combination of both commercial and political motivation. The coverage made a mockery of the very notion of freedom of the press and the pursuit of truth. Squatters were merely the latest in a long line of victims of a media that is far-removed from the ideals it professes to uphold.

Fighting back: squatters organise to defend their rights