Residents of Gosport, the Royal Navy harbor town across the water from Portsmouth, spent Sunday under police orders that let officers direct people to leave town, as a migrant boat from France made its way toward their coastline.
The migrants were brought into Gosport onboard an RNLI boat (AOL)Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary imposed a Section 34 dispersal order covering the entire town under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, running until 7am Tuesday. It lets officers order people to leave an area and not return, and refusing is a criminal offense. Police stacked several more restrictions on top:
- Protesters were confined to a single designated area inside the Walpole car park under Section 14 of the Public Order Act.
- Face coverings at protests were banned across both Gosport and Portsmouth.
- Haslar Bridge was closed.
The boat left Normandy, near Utah Beach, on Sunday morning. Late Sunday evening, two RNLI lifeboats brought 149 people ashore in Gosport, who were then put on coaches to Kent for processing, health, security and biometric checks. It was the third crossing headed for the western Channel coast in a month, a route that had been rare in recent years.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO of boats arriving. I can not believe the B
