As a Green Party candidate attending the election count in Worthing on Thursday, I would like to comment on the incident which took place (The Argus, May 3).

I admit that I, like everyone else, was at first irritated by what seemed an inappropriate disruption of the democratic process when some scuffling took place. I did not discover the truth of the matter until later.

Dawn Smith, a democratically proposed and accepted candidate for the Stop Durrington's Overdevelopment Party, was entitled to invite supporters and guests as all candidates were.

The problem occurred when her supporters were refused admission because they had no ID. This is fair enough but I should point out that I was not asked to show any ID - my green party rosette seemed to be enough.

This difference in treatment was presumably because I did not have dreadlocks or smell strongly of woodsmoke from sitting in endangered trees for two years. The kicking and screaming described in the article, was no more than the protesters' attempt to make this undemocratic treatment obvious to all. They were not violent but were determined to call out the facts of the matter and were struggling to make their voices heard.

Dawn, not unnaturally, complained bitterly about this discrimination at which point the police were called who ordered her to leave.

For me the greatest irony of the whole thing was that this was happening at the same time as the Tory candidates and their supporters were proudly showing off supposed green credentials in the form of a green tree logo at the centre of their blue rosettes.

  • Moyra Martin, Queen's Place, Shoreham