Four Insulate Britain supporters were found guilty of causing a public nuisance by a Crown Court jury today, in the sixth trial relating to Insulate Britain’s 2021 campaign of nonviolent civil resistance. [1]
Rev Mark Coleman, 63, from Rochdale, Daphne Jackson, 72, from Sedburgh, Stephanie Aylett, 28, from St. Albans and Beatrice Pooley, 65, from Kendal were declared guilty of causing a public nuisance in relation to the Insulate Britain roadblock at Bishopsgate on 25th October 2021. One other trial relating to the same roadblock took place in December 2022 in which the three defendants were acquitted. [2] [3]
After a five day hearing, the 11 person jury took one and a half hours to deliberate before returning a unanimous guilty verdict. The four will appear again for sentencing on 24th March and they have 28 days to appeal the conviction. The maximum penalty for the common law offence of public nuisance is life imprisonment.
The trial started with Judge Silas Reid ruling that the four defendants could not refer to their motivations for blocking the motorway in their defence. As with the earlier Insulate Britain jury trials, the defendants were each barred from referring to the climate crisis, insulation or fuel poverty during the trial. An additional restriction imposed in the current trial was on any mention of the 1960s civil rights activists, the Freedom Riders.
Rev Mark Coleman, 63 a retired vicar from Rochdale said:
“I sat on Bishopsgate in the City of London with many other supporters of Insulate Britain as an act of peaceful, non violent resistance to the murderous behaviour of our government. To leave people in cold, badly insulated homes, especially older and vulnerable people, is immoral and cruel.
“British people care for their neighbours, and do not usually walk by ‘on the other side’, ignoring the suffering of others. Our families, friends and neighbours are suffering. It does not have to be like this. Insulating Britain and stopping these reckless plans for new gas and oil wells are common sense first steps away from disaster. I call on Rishi Sunak to do his duty as a minister of the crown: to serve the people.”
Beatrice Pooley, 65, an English teacher from Kendal said:
“The judge had ruled that we could not give evidence as to our motivation for acting in the way that we did. Nor could we talk about any aspect of the climate and ecological emergency facing us all. Therefore I’m not surprised that we have been found guilty.”
During today’s trial at Inner London crown Court, Stephanie Aylett, 28, from St Albans, was charged with contempt of court by Judge Reid for disobeying his ruling against referring to the climate crisis, insulation or fuel poverty during her defence. She is due to appear in court on Monday 30th January and faces a possible custodial sentence.
She said:
“I am deeply disappointed that the court system is complicit in the process of criminalising peaceful protest. It horrified me that Judge Reid deliberately stripped away all our legal defences and told us that we would be in contempt of court if we spoke about our motivations, strategy or aims. He prevented us from mentioning climate change or talking about any scientific evidence.
“It’s likely I will now go to prison, because I spoke the truth to our jury. It is incredibly difficult to explain the actions we took without being allowed to mention why we did such a bizarre thing.
“The reality is that this Government continues to quietly take away our basic human rights, while knowingly funding the destruction of our future – all because they want to make the rich even richer. Future generations will look back at this time with absolute horror and disbelief, while society as we know it crumbles around them.”
In the five previous Insulate Britain jury trials for public nuisance charges, two trials so far have resulted in acquittals, one has resulted in a guilty verdict and two have been deferred. The first Insulate Britain jury trial was deferred until June 2023 after the Judge dismissed the jury and asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider whether proceeding with the trial was in the public interest. [4]
The Crown Prosecution Service has chosen to summon a total of 56 supporters to answer at least 201 charges of Public Nuisance across at least 51 jury trials the last of which is scheduled to begin on 4th December 2023. These trials are planned to be heard across Inner London, Hove, Lewes and Reading Crown Courts and we estimate will take up around one thousand four hundred and twenty eight hours of court time.
ENDS
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Notes to Editors
[1] Insulate Britain is a campaign group that is calling on the UK government to put in place policy and funding for a national home insulation programme starting with all social housing by 2025, and create a meaningful plan to insulate the entire UK housing stock by 2030.
Further information about Insulate Britain and our demands here:
https://insulatebritain.com/
Technical Report on home energy efficiency here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jt5FI-kinEXoqZtPDrCvnAVQ2EFn8Aea/view
Insulate Britain ‘Blue Lights’ policy: our policy is, and has always been, to move out of the way for emergency vehicles with ‘blue lights’ on.
[2] http://insulatebritain.com/2021/10/25/breaking-we-wont-stand-by-while-the-government-kills-our-kids/