Nick Cohen reviews Vanessa Engle’s documentary, Property is Theft, a film on the squatters’ movement in the UK during the 1970s. It’s the first of three in a series called Lefties that BBC4 begins airing 8 February.
Long-standing residents of St. Agnes Place in Kennington (South London), the oldest squatted street in London, were evicted by hundreds of riot police [Video] on 29 November 2005. “The last resisting squatter had been removed from the remaining occupied house in an ambulance, as the eviction was brutally completed [Video]”. Ex residents were searched by police when they attempted to register as homeless a few days later. When people attempted to take photographs of the searches they were ordered to cease and desist.