Anna Redfern And Cinema And Co.

I think that this sorry case and its perception has at its heart ego. Anna is not far right and neither are those that supported her. That is the label applied at the time by the media. However, Anna's action, to stand alone and effectively raise her own profile, to be a voice for others, has led to her businesses, by the sounds of it, likely demise.

I visited Cinema and Co and Anna at the time and I offered to populate her cinema with arts events, so as to stand with her in the face of local government attacks. I pressured Anna Brees, a castle building ego driven but popular spokesperson in the fight against the government’s totalitarian policies, to release her details of businesses signed up to her 'Against Vaccine Passports' campaign so as to garner widespread support for Cinema and Co, both locally and nationally. Together we stand and all that. I wrote blog posts to my business pages and shared them with my extensive social media and extended networks, much to my own business’s detriment. But it was the right thing to do.

Then the crowdfunding 'disappeared' and to my horror, Anna capitulated when aggressively targeted by the state. This capitulation was a significant moment. It was unnecessary given the support she was receiving but worse still it sent a clear message to all in the fight. That message was do not have faith in your peers to stand firm and that you cannot win when up against the state. Anna could have won this fight and in doing so she could have been at the centre of a group of small businesses nationwide refusing to cooperate with illegitimate requests and shoddy lawmaking. And if she had lost that battle? Then she would be standing proud knowing that she had done the right thing.

Shame on those businesses refusing to network with her now. However, her track record of networking, along with the perception of financial mismanagement, seems to have been at the route to her failures during this sorry period of history and I wonder how it is Anna can be critical of her peer group when clearly she did not work alongside others at this crucial time.

Article in Wales Online 3rd December 2022

Anna Redfern (Image: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures)

The owner of an independent Swansea cinema, bar and cafe has revealed how she is being forced to claim Universal Credit as her business struggles following her legal battle over a breach of coronavirus rules during the pandemic. A video interview featuring Anna Redfern, owner of Cinema & Co, has been posted online in which she has relived her experiences, and spoken about the difficulties currently facing her.

She was hit with fines totalling £15,000 in December last year after admitting breaching Covid public health regulations. She was also ordered to pay £8,940 in prosecution costs, while the firm itself received a £5,000 fine. Redfern also received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to contempt of court for opening the cinema in the face of a court order but in a rare move she was subsequently allowed to vacate that plea - in effect withdraw it - and the matter was not proceeded with.

Miss Redfern appealed against the level of the fines and that appeal was part-heard in September when a judge adjourned the hearing and ordered her to produce a detailed audit trail of personal and business finances ahead of making a ruling on the level of the fines and Miss Redfern's ability to pay. That disclosure was to include the whereabouts of tens of thousands of pounds in cash from an online crowdfunding campaign set up by a person who, the court heard, had links to the political far-right, as well as government grants given to the business.

At a hearing at Swansea Crown Court in October, it emerged that Miss Redfern had dispensed with her barrister and legal team, and had abandoned the appeal. The court also heard the required financial disclosure had not been complied with. The judge made an order for the appellant to pay £8,998 in costs, a figure which he said took into account the money raised by the crowdfunding campaign. Get Swansea stories straight to your inbox with our newsletter.

Outside Cinema & Co (Image: Rhodri Harrison)

Speaking during the interview posted online this week, Miss Redfern said: "My business is struggling. I've just signed up for Universal Credit. It's really such a tough landscape. It makes me feel like leaving my hometown which I've got a lot of affection for but it's just so ludicrous this illusion of me being a Nazi. The mind boggles, it really does.

She said she received thousands of messages privately saying she'd given people hope, "but that's indicative of how scared people are to voice their opinions in public. I'm being discriminated against for standing up against discrimination, all because of a false association with the far right."

Miss Redfern spoke of how the fundraiser was the fastest growing cause of its kind, raising £61,000 within two weeks. She explained: "If it wasn't for that money I wouldn't be here now. I tried to donate some of it when I first received it. There's a primary school fund that umbrellas five primary schools which live in stark poverty in Swansea - they have foodbanks, there's just no hope for these kids.

"It took ages for the headmaster who spearheads the fund to get back to me, and when he finally did, he apologised for the delay, but said they had to have a board of governors meeting and said he could not take any money from me because of where the money apparently came from. Because of politics, kids continue to starve, and this made me feel sick to my stomach when I found this out."

The cinema owner explained how her business was "operating at a loss" and had been left out of cultural events such as poetry nights and live music. She explained: "We recently had the Swansea Fringe Festival, which all the city centre venues take part in, but it was unanimously agreed that my venue was not to take part because of this false association with the far right." A court heard previously how big Hollywood studios and distributors including Disney and Warner had withdrawn licences from Cinema & Co to show their films over Miss Redfern's perceived links to the far right

"I'm the most apolitical person there is, all politics does is divide people. It gets us arguing amongst ourselves, and my business is suffering as a result. It's operating at a loss. The crowd funding money has ensured that I survived that, but that run out. £20,000 went towards failed legal representation as well. I withdrew my appeal because it felt like I was going into the Lion's Den."