ELEVEN people were arrested simply for holding signs outside Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon, while climate activists were on trial inside.
Protesters held signs reading “Juries deserve to hear the whole truth” and “Juries have the absolute right to acquit a defendant on their conscience” as a trial took place in which activists have been banned from talking about the impact of climate breakdown to jurors.
They were arrested on suspicion of contempt of court following instructions from Judge Hehir, who had been overseeing the trial. He described the sign-holders as “trouble-makers.”
A twelfth member holding a blank sign was not arrested.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, who staged the protest, said that judges like Judge Hehir and Judge Reid, also overseeing the trials of climate protesters, “are taking increasingly desperate measures to secure the guilty verdicts they want for environmental defenders.”
They said this includes “threatening jurors and arresting people who peacefully exercise their democratic rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
“In defying the High Court and disregarding the concerns of the United Nations with their arrogant muscle-flexing, they imply that as Crown Court judges, they are above the law.”
The individuals were released on bail on condition they did not come within the vicinity of the court until a contempt proceedings hearing on September 27.
Inside, Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam had been on trial with four others on a charge of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, accused of organising activists to climb gantries on the M25 over four days in November 2022.
Although defendants had been told that they could not bring evidence in their defence on the impacts of climate change, Mr Hallam defied this and delivered a speech to jurors about the risk of human extinction. Judge Hehir sent out the jury three times.
The arrest of the protesters comes after Judge Reid ordered the arrest of 69-year-old Trudi Warner last year after holding a sign outside Inner London Crown Court summarising the principle of jury equity: “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.”
The High Court threw out a contempt proceedings against her.
Dismissing the case, Mr Justice Saini said: “A criminal prosecution is a disproportionate approach to this situation in a democratic society.”
Last March, Judge Reid banned defendants in Insulate Britain trials from using the words “climate change” and “fuel poverty” in court, and imprisoned a number of people for doing so.
United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, condemned Britain’s treatment of climate protesters earlier this year and slammed the decision to forbid them from explaining to the jury their motivation for participating in protests.
He said: “It is very difficult to understand what could justify denying the jury the opportunity to hear the reason for the defendant’s action, and how a jury could reach a properly informed decision without hearing it, in particular at the time of environmental defenders’ peaceful but ever more urgent calls for the government to take pressing action for the climate.”
