Tony Leamon - Celtic, Cornish activist - still on bail

As readers will be aware, yesterday should have been the day that Celtic League activist Tony Leamon answered his bail at Camborne police station. The Celtic League ran this story on their news pages, thinking that Tony may at last be taken off bail for lack of any evidence against him. A demonstration outside Camborne police station had been planned by Branch activists and so had a campaign of coordinated activity to contact Camborne police station asking about Tony's welfare, by email and telephone, from across the world.

However, just before Tony left his house yesterday, two police officers called round and told him that his bail would be delayed until 2nd July 2008. Whether this was a calculated attempt by the police to avoid any negative publicity in the press for themselves or whether it was because they can find no evidence whatsoever to charge Tony with, we will probably never know. The CPW feeling is that the truth lies somewhere between the two scenarios.

What is clear though, after this bail date, is that Tony’s support is growing at an incredible rate. The longer Tony is on bail the more people around the world are becoming aware of the injustice that he is being subjected to by the Devon and Cornwall colonial police. Emails of support have been coming in to the CPW team and others from as far afield as USA, Canada, France, Spain, Australia and Malaysia, in addition to the support base in the celtic countries.

Yesterday, after the visit from the police, Tony contacted his solicitor to complain about the length of bail that he has now received and to see if something could be done about it. His solicitor told him that the police can keep him on bail for as long as necessary and that it is only the time spend at the police station, being interrogated that actually maters. By July Tony will have been on bail for 10 months and has been interrogated for 18 to 20 hours. After arrest the police can only keep you at the police station for a maximum of 24 hours before being charged. However, solicitor friend that Tony has also been in contact with told him that he had never heard of such an extended bail period before.

This weekend at the Annual Rio Grande Valley Celtic Festival and Highland Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, a flyer about Tony’s treatment will be distributed to visitors from the Cornwall stall and people will be able to add their name and contact details to a distribution list to be kept informed about further developments. Also a support fund has been set up for Tony to cover any legal costs.

Also see this link for further details.