Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law

Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Thursday, 11 September 2008

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.

Kingsnorth was the centre for mass protests by
climate camp activists last month. Last year,
three protesters managed to paint Gordon Brown's
name on the plant's chimney. Their handi-work cost £35,000 to remove.

The plan to build a successor to the power
station is likely to be the first of a new
generation of coal-fired plants. As coal produces
more of the carbon emissions causing climate
change than any other fuel, campaigners claim
that a new station would be a disastrous setback
in the battle against global warming, and send
out a negative signal to the rest of the world
about how serious Britain really is about tackling the climate threat.

But the proposals, from the energy giant E.ON,
are firmly backed by the Business Secretary, John
Hutton, and the Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks.
Some members of the Cabinet are thought to be
unhappy about them, including the Foreign
Secretary, David Miliband, and the Environment
Secretary, Hilary Benn. Mr Brown is likely to
have the final say on the matter later this year.

During the eight-day trial, the world's leading
climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of
Nasa, who had flown from American to give
evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister
personally to "take a leadership role" in
cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a
coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he
wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the
trial, he called for an moratorium on all
coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long
testimony about the gravity of the climate
danger, which painted a bleak picture, was
listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.

Professor Hansen, who first alerted the world to
the global warming threat in June 1988 with
testimony to a US senate committee in Washington,
and who last year said the earth was in "imminent
peril" from the warming atmosphere, asserted that
emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage
property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.

He was one of several leading public figures who
gave evidence for the defence, including Zac
Goldsmith, the Conservative parliamentary
candidate for Richmond Park and director of the
Ecologist magazine, who similarly told the jury
that in his opinion, direct action could be
justified in the minds of many people if it was
intended to prevent larger crimes being committed.

The acquittal was the second time in a decade
that the "lawful excuse" defence has been
successfully used by Greenpeace activists. In
1999, 28 Greenpeace campaigners led Lord
Melchett, who was director at the time, were
cleared of criminal damage after trashing an
experimental field of GM crops in Norfolk. In
each case the damage was not disputed – the point at issue was the motive.

The defendants who scaled the 630ft chimney at
Kingsnorth, near Hoo, last year were Huw
Williams, 41, from Nottingham; Ben Stewart, 34,
from Lyminge, Kent; Kevin Drake, 44, from
Westbury, Wiltshire; Will Rose, 29, from London;
and Emily Hall, 34, from New Zealand. Tim Hewke,
48, from Ulcombe, Kent, helped organise the protest.

The court heard how, dressed in orange boiler
suits and white hard hats bearing the Greenpeace
logo, the six-strong group arrived at the site at
6.30am on 8 October. Armed with bags containing
abseiling gear, five of them scaled the chimney
while Mr Hewke waited below to liaise between the climbers and police.

The climbers had planned to paint "Gordon, bin
it" in huge letters on the side of the chimney,
but although they succeeded in temporarily
shutting the station, they only got as far as
painting the word "Gordon" on the chimney before
they descended, having been threatened with a
High Court injunction. Removing the graffiti cost
E.ON £35,000, the court heard.

During the trial the defendants said they had
acted lawfully, owing to an honestly held belief
that their attempt to stop emissions from
Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to
properties worldwide caused by global warming.
Their aim, they said, was to rein back CO2
emissions and bring urgent pressure to bear on
the Government and E.ON to changes policies. They
insisted their action had caused the minimum
amount of damage necessary to close the plant
down and constituted a "proportionate response"
to the increasing environmental threat.

Speaking outside court after being cleared
yesterday, Mr Stewart said: "This is a huge blow
for ministers and their plans for new coal-fired
power stations. It wasn't only us in the dock, it
was the coal-fired generation as well. After this
verdict, the only people left in Britain who
think new coal is a good idea are John Hutton and
Malcolm Wicks. It's time the Prime Minister
stepped in, showed some leadership and embraced
the clean energy future for Britain."

He added: "This verdict marks a tipping point for
the climate change movement. When a jury of
normal people say it is legitimate for a direct
action group to shut down a coal-fired power
station because of the harm it does to our
planet, then where does that leave Government
energy policy? We have the clean technologies at
hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal."

Ms Hall said: "The jury heard from the most
distinguished climate scientist in the world. How
could they ignore his warnings and reject his leading scientific arguments?"

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html
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