Craig Murray - Three Cheers for Juries

« So You Think This Is A Free Country? | Main | Evidence of Karimov's Crimes - and CIA Participation »

September 13, 2008

Three Cheers for Juries

The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html

Posted by craig on September 13, 2008 11:00 PM in the category UK Policy

Comments

Glad to see your post on this topic. Juries seem in need of defence just now. http://freecommonwealth.blogspot.com/2008/09/law-indifferent-to-blame-or-praise.html

Posted by: kazbel at September 13, 2008 11:48 PM

Similar Irish case in 2006.

Reference below is to critical commentary but it sets out the facts and gives links to source material.

http://www.lawsocietyblog.com/archives/253

Posted by: Benny the Bridgebuilder at September 14, 2008 12:41 PM

It's one of the great things about the British legal system; the final arbiter of innocence/guilt is the decision of the jury - not the written word of the law. The right-wing press tend to rally against the every time it happens.

There are other examples, if I remember correctly, of damaging weapons/aircraft exported from the U.K. to the human-rights violating Indonesian regime under Suharto (re East Timor) and the destruction of GM crops that virtually no one in the U.K. is willing to eat anyway.

Posted by: Paul J. Lewis at July 21, 2009 11:39 AM