An anti-fracking protester has been charged with common assault towards a bailiff who issued warning notices that campaigners on an activist camp are trespassing.
Max Wiesner, 29, who lives at the Upton camp, will appear at Chester Magistrates Court on December 30 after allegedly pushing an enforcement officer from a gate at the anti-fracking camp off Duttons Lane, Upton, Chester.
Protesters claim the bailiff threw himself on the ground as video footage emerged of the incident.
Supporter of the campaign group, Dr Steven Peers who filmed the incident last Friday, said: “It is absolutely outrageous that Cheshire police have acted in this fashion.”
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Notices placed around the camp last Friday warned residents the land is now owned by IGas Energy Plc and there is no longer any right for them to occupy the land without the consent of the owners.
Activists claim the bailiffs refused to provide identification and allege one officer assaulted a number of residents at the camp after they tried to obstruct the officers gaining entry onto their property.
Anti-fracking campaigners set up camp last April with the permission of the farmer who previously owned the land before selling to IGas in recent months.
The camp was set up to prevent energy firm IGas drilling an exploratory borehole in the middle of a field.
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IGas is scouring the country looking for methane in the underground layers of coal and shale but one potential extraction method, known as fracking, is particularly controversial.
Campaigners who set up camp to protect their community fear air and water pollution as well as earthquakes and worry it will delay the switch to renewables, like solar power, given climate change.
The campaigners said they would not move from the site as they had not received an official eviction notice.
A spokeswoman from Cheshire Police said: “The 29-year-old was charged with common assault.
“He will appear at West Cheshire Magistrates on 30 December 2015.”
