Occupy London bailiff charged with assault

A bailiff has been charged with assaulting two people and damaging a photographer's camera during the eviction of an Occupy London site earlier this year. Keith Beams, from Croydon, is due to appear at Thames magistrates court on 13 April charged with two counts of common assault and one count of criminal damage, a Metropolitan police spokesperson said. The enforcement officer was arrested on 30 January shortly after bailiffs and police moved to evict the Occupy movement's educational hub, the so-called Bank of Ideas, from a disused office in the City of London. About 50 activists were evicted peacefully, but protesters claimed tensions had risen during a subsequent eviction when police and bailiffs moved to clear a squat unrelated to Occupy but located in the same UBS-owned office complex. One of the people who Beams, 45, is alleged to have assaulted was a photographer, Jules Mattsson, whose camera was allegedly damaged.