A grandfather had to deflate his own dinghy to stop "idiot" protesters taking it
Protesters asked the grandfather ‘can we have your boat’?
A grandfather said he had to deflate his own dinghy to stop protesters taking it after more than 100 migrants arrived in Portsmouth yesterday.
Barry Williams, 69, said that some “idiot” protesters had offered him money to use his boat. It came as they blocked the area last night to prevent the migrants from being taken to a specialist facility in Kent.
He said: “I don’t know what they thought they could do but they said ‘can we have your boat?’ and I said ‘no it’s run out of petrol’. They said they would give me £200 but I said the tide was going out so you’re not going to go anywhere.
“One of the idiots, I heard him say they thought the migrants might have come in this boat”, he added, referring to his own small 2.7 metre-long dinghy.
Barry Williams was out on his boat before returning to the pontoon at Eastney beach where he spotted two “big” offshore lifeboats “full of migrants”.
He said: “As the day progressed a lot of protesters came. Some were just protesting but unfortunately some of them did damage to police vehicles and any official car that was here like Border Control.
“They tried to block the road with concrete blocks and had come from far afield. One guy said he had come from Gatwick.”
Barry said there was also an incident involving his boat.
“I went to bed at 4am and (the protesters) drove off with the coaches then. Before that there was riot police and it was chaos.
“I did circle the boats and was videoing them, waving to them, but then the police told me to clear off – I said ‘I’m only greeting them'”.
He added that he feared his campervan would be vandalised by the protesters in Portsmouth who were blocking roads, after protesters damaged police cars and “anything to do with the official people”.
Mr John-Williams said he had parked his campervan to use his boat on Sunday but became trapped there overnight after protesters blocked the only road in and out of the peninsula.
The singer said he felt the back of his van shake when protesters targeted a police vehicle.
“The (police) car was like behind me, a couple foot away, and I thought, oh f***, they’re… going to steal my petrol, they’re… going to start, you know, vandalising my van”, he added.
“But then when I got out, I noticed that (damage to the police vehicle) – it must have been jumping on the windscreen and stuff.”