Trials & legal cases

I was charged with assaulting police officer in the execution of his duty on 12 September in the run-up to the DSEI arms fair in East London.

The officer had grabbed me without warning when I was climbing a pillar to reinforce a banner which I had stuck up there a little earlier, and I had swung my arm out to try and make him let of me. The gaffer tape in my hand had hit his face.

There were two lines of defence: firstly, that the police officer was not acting in the…

Judge Crabtree warned us that while judgements in magistrates’ courts usually take between 45 minutes and two hours, this one was likely to take considerably longer. He was right; his judgement took three-and-a-half hours. But it was a judgement worth waiting for.

Six activists were being prosecuted for ‘aggravated trespass’ for occupying trees along the route of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road in January 2013 (see PN 2554, 2566).

The first two hours or so of the hearing in…

There have been anti-arms trade legal victories connected to protests at the defence & security equipment international (DSEI) arms fair last September. On 4 February, five Christian protesters (Chloe Skinner, Christopher Wood, Daniel Woodhouse, James Clayton and Symon Hill) were acquitted of aggravated trespass. On 18 February, charges were dropped against six other activists. During Balcombe-related anti-fracking trials at Brighton magistrates’ court at the end of January, Aaron Bell was…

Grannies Are In Action (GAIA) set up a ‘car wash’ in the
floodwaters of Combe Haven, East Sussex, on 12 January.
Photo: Marta Lefler

Over half the charges against Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) anti-roads protesters have been dropped or abandoned, or have resulted in not guilty verdicts, in the four trials so far concluded. At the time of going to press two trials were still underway, continuing into early February.

CHD, an East Sussex anti-roads…

On 10 and 13 January, Reading magistrates court dismissed charges of ‘obstruction of the highway’ against two groups of Trident Ploughshares (TP) activists because of procedural errors by the crown prosecution service (CPS).

On 10 January, Leonna O’Neill, Jamie Watson and Julia Mercer were on trial for their participation in the international Action AWE blockades outside the atomic weapons establishment (AWE) Burghfield on 2 September last year (see PN 2562). Julia Mercer had…

On Wednesday, January 15th, 79-year old Margaretta D’Arcy, writer, member of Aosdana which honours outstanding contributors to the arts in Ireland,  and widow of the late playwright John Arden, answered a knock on the door of her small Galway City terraced house. It was the Irish police. She was arrested and ferried by squad car to Limerick Prison to serve a three month sentence. Her crime: failure to sign a bond pledging to no longer trespass onto unauthorised areas of Shannon Airport.…

On 7 October, six peace activists were found guilty of criminal damage during a protest at a British drones base, RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. They were given a conditional discharge for six months, were fined £10 and ordered to pay £75 in court costs.

Defendant Keith Hebden told PN: ‘The judge recognised the validity of our arguments, saying Waddington was a “legitimate target for protest”. The token order to pay £10 in compensation reads to me like an invitation to press home the…

The protestors that day suffered ‘kettling’ (mass detention), charges by police horses and baton attacks. Alfie required emergency brain surgery after being struck by a police baton.

Like many others, Zak and Alfie were arrested and charged with serious public order offences. Some cases have resulted in prison sentences, including one of 12 months for a student for merely waving a placard stick. However, where students pleaded not guilty and described police brutality on the day,…

Two census resisters had their trials continued in early October, with Andy Manifold due to return to court on 19 October and Sarah Ledsom hoping to finish her trial on 23 November. Both are at Dale St magistrates' court in Liverpool.

400 people in Britain have been or are being prosecuted for failing to fill out the 2011 census. 

Among them are a number of peace activists who objected to the involvement in the census of military firms Lockheed Martin (processing the data for…

On 23 August, two Smash EDO activists were found guilty by Brighton magistrates court of aggravated trespass at the EDO MBM arms factory in Moulsecoomb.

Jessica Nero and Gavin Pidwell used superglue to lock themselves to the gates of the factory on 26 April, causing 100 lost hours of work, according to EDO managing director Paul Hills.

After several days of legal argument and evidence-giving about EDO’s breach of the Cluster Munitions Act (2010), magistrates fined the…

On 17 September, the Metropolitan police finally fired the police officer who hit passerby Ian Tomlinson with a baton and pushed him to the ground during protests against the G20 in London in April 2009.

Despite the fact that a inquest jury found in May 2011 that Ian Tomlinson had been unlawfully killed by a police officer, PC Simon Harwood was…

Prosecutors failed to convict student protester Alfie Meadows of violent disorder at a trial in mid-April. The 21-year-old suffered a brain injury after being struck by a police baton at an anti-tuition fees demo in December 2010.

Though three other defendants were acquitted of the same offence, jurors were unable to reach a verdict in the case of Meadows and a fifth man, Zac King.

On 19 April, after a three-day trial, Harrogate magistrates’ court ruled that long-time peace activist Lindis Percy had ‘no case to answer’.

Lindis had been charged with ‘wilfully obstructing’ three Ministry of Defence police officers in the execution of their duty outside the spy base Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire on 16 August 2011.

District judge Jane Goodwin found the…

Accomplice Janet Fenton, who is secretary of Scottish CND, was given 120 hours community service.

In 2010, the women had appeared at the court accused of a breach of the peace during a blockade of Faslane naval base.

During their trial, the pair were barred from arguing the case that they had a right to disrupt the illegal work at Faslane under international humanitarian law. In response they painted slogans indicating the failure of the court to uphold international…

I haven't written for a month or two due to personal circumstances but now I'm back in the land of the living I'd like you all to hear about a Manchester peace protester and his court cases. Usman Hamid (affectionately known as Mani) has protested for a long time often as a single protester with hand-written placards as well as in groups, and always, always peacefully. The Manchester Evening News (M.E.N.) covered his story recently, on…