THE co-leader of the Green Party has been forcibly removed from the entrance to the Kirby Misperton fracking site by police.
Jonathan Bartley, who co-leads the party with Brighton MP Caroline Lucas, was speaking to anti-fracking protesters at the gates to the so-called 'KMA' site this afternoon.
The police forcibly removed @jon_bartley from Kirby Misperton #fracking site today as he was giving a speech to campaigners. Unacceptable! pic.twitter.com/Jyp4Ekcqgq
— Green Party (@TheGreenParty) November 10, 2017
Videos posted to social media show Mr Bartley being removed from the site entrance by police.
However, after being moved, it appears he carried on talking to protesters at the site.
Well that was interesting. Never been pushed over and dragged away by police while giving a speech before https://t.co/iqmrW3zAm5
— Jonathan Bartley (@jon_bartley) November 10, 2017
Superintendent Alisdair Dey, of North Yorkshire Police, said: "A number of people were standing, sitting and lying in the road outside the hydraulic fracturing site at 1.15pm today.
"Officers explained they were blocking the road, and asked them to move on several occasions, but they refused to do so. Several people were then moved away by officers.
"We know that there are very different views about hydraulic fracturing, but as the local police, our responsibility is to carry out our duties impartially.
"That means we have a duty to make sure that people who want to assemble and protest do so safely, balanced against a duty to ensure that businesses can go about their lawful commercial activity."
Mr Bartley has today criticised the Government for giving subsidies to a fracking company based in the Cayman Islands.
More on that in Wednesday's Gazette & Herald.
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