Freemen of The Land Again

I little while back I had a look at the “Freemen of the land” and what they have been doing.  They basically they are people who state that the only laws that they have to follow are the ones that they themselves agree to.  It is a truly bizarre system and something that I wanted to follow up here in Wales.

So I asked all the councils in Wales:

Have you received any sort of notification that they are “Freemen of the land” in the last ten years.

The reasons for this is that it would be something that would be easy to have a little look through and report back on. So the answer came back:

Name	Freemen of the land Claims
Blaenau	2
Bridgend	Unable
Caerphilly	yes
Cardiff	No
Carmarthenshire	1
Ceredigion
Conway	Unable
Denbighshire
Flintshire
Gwynedd	0
Anglesey
Merthyr Tydfil	0
Monmouth	Unable
Neath Port Talbot
Newport	16
Pembroke
Powys	yes
RCT
Swansea
Torfaen	yes
Vale Of Glamorgan	No
Wrexham	No – Did have someone ask about.

The really funny thing that I found whilst doing this was the anecdotes that people told.  Newport stated that they had the amount they had because of parking tickets and some council taxes which needed to be paid. They then stated “They were all successfully prosecuted”, which did give me a giggle. Wrexham did have someone who asked about how to become a Freeman of the Land and never came back. The thought that you could go to the council and asked them “Please can you tell me how I can get out of paying all taxes”, they hand you the application form, and away you go is brilliant!

Anyway, I know that this is silly, but it also shows what you can get out of the FoI, which is a deeper insight into the human mind!