I felt threatened by police at the 10th anniversary demonstration outside Campsfield immigrant detention centre near Kidlington (Oxford Mail, December 1).

I have never experienced anything like it.

Nor, I gather, has anyone else who has attended these peaceful, humanitarian protests during the last 10 years. I, and everyone else, was videoed and photographed intrusively, almost continuously, and from very close quarters.

It is hard to see what purpose this can have served, other than to intimidate.

Some of us were physically shoved, many of us were searched, and we were all repeatedly cautioned that we would be arrested if we strayed from an incredibly restricted "designated area" -- which police seemed to feel at liberty to redefine as and when they felt like it, without explanation. These demonstrations are intended to bring a little human support and encouragement to the 180 unfortunate refugees detained indefinitely without trial in Campsfield.

We were prevented from doing this by mounted police patrols and perhaps 70 other officers, all of them equipped for violence with flak jackets, batons and handcuffs.

A number of officers had concealed their numbers under their fluorescent over-jackets and had to be requested by demonstrators to show them.

Some officers seemed delighted by this chance to throw their weight about, itching for any response from demonstrators.

This became a demonstration by the police of their own arbitrary power.

Public money -- thousands of pounds' worth of it -- was spent for no purpose other than to deter legitimate protest by the threat of force.

I am a newcomer to Oxford and this experience leaves me seriously concerned about what now passes for "normal policing" here.

BOB HUGHES

Senior Lecturer

Oxford Brookes University