Environmental protesters have claimed a major legal victory after Kent Police admitted for the first time that it operated an unlawful stop and search policy against climate protesters at Kingsnorth power station in August 2008.
The test case was brought by 11-year-old twins who were attending their first political event along with veteran campaigner Dave Morris.
The admission came during a session of the Divisional Court on Friday.
The court went on to rule that the searches had not been lawful and had breached the claimants' privacy and protest right under articles 8, 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act.
Some 3,500 stop and searches were carried out at Kingsnorth under the unlawful policy. The policy was set out in a secret briefing document known as slide 18, the existence of which was only revealed last Monday.
Kent Police had previously argued that searching officers had individual suspicion to justify every search.
The solicitor acting for the claimants John Halford from Bindmans LLP said: "The court was rightly concerned about slide 18. Though produced by Kent at a very late stage of this litigation, it is a gun that is still smoking.
"It demonstrates without doubt that Kent's public position on this important protest and those who wished to attend was a grotesque parody of what was going on behind closed doors."
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