Confusion over future of squat in former police station earmarked for free school

By Hackney Citizen | Thursday 8 May 2014 at 10:24

Still being squatted: the now-closed Hackney Central Police Station. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Confusion reigns over the fate of squatters occupying the former Hackney Central Police Station building, which was sold last year by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and is set to be converted into a school.

MOPAC confirmed the building is now owned by the Tauheedul Free Schools Trust, but no one at the trust could say whether civil proceedings to evict the occupiers have yet begun.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said only that they were “aware of squatters” and were taking “appropriate action.”

MOPAC sold the building for £7.6 million in July last year, and the squatters are understood to have moved in in early April.

Squatting of residential buildings was criminalised in 2012, but squatting of non-residential properties remains a civil matter.

Anonymous occupiers of the former Hackney Central Police Station building say their actions are ‘non-political’ and are motivated by homelessness.

The Olive School, a “progressive, Muslim” free school founded by the Tauheedul Free Schools Trust, is scheduled to move into the building.

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