After spray-painting Cambridgeshire county council headquarters during an environmental protest last December, Extinction Rebellion protester Angela Ditchfield was found not guilty of criminal damage.
She successfully argued that she had a legal excuse to commit vandalism as she believed there was an immediate threat to her home from climate disaster.
Given that the offense took place nearly a year ago, it should be obvious that the threat was not ‘immediate’, and in spite of the hysterical claims of Extinction Rebellion and their supporters, ‘climate catastrophe’ has still not struck.
Nonetheless, in delivering their verdict, Cambridge magistrates told Ms. Ditchfield:
‘We find that you have a very strong and honestly held belief that we are facing a climate emergency; that you acted on the spur of the moment to protect land and homes under threat from climate change, believing that immediate protection was necessary, and the action could be said to have been taken to protect property and that you believed the action chosen was reasonable in all circumstances.’
Fortunately, the ruling cannot set a precedent because it was made in a magistrates’ court, but it could be used as a defense by other members of the protest group.
Not many people carry cans of spray paint in the normal course of their lives, and it seems a strange explanation for damaging property that the accused was actually trying to protect property.
The defense used by Ms. Ditchfield was meant for situations in which, for example, an individual breaks a window or door to get into a burning building.
It would have been far more applicable to pro-life vigils, where human lives are actually under immediate threat – not from fire, but from deliberate killing.
And yet while Public Spaces Protection Orders have been introduced to outlaw vigils outside some abortion clinics, and campaigners have called for their introduction countrywide, Extinction Rebellion campaigners have brought parts of London to a standstill.
Nearly all of the 1,100 arrested have received conditional discharges.
Read rest at Conservative Woman
Not guilty by reason of insanity…
“Not guilty by reason of stupidity”
There, fixed it for you.
It’s nice to see some on the bench are just as crazy. We live in dark times.
I break into a dealership and steal a new car. In my defense I tell the court I needed a new car (or any car I suppose) to go the work because I feel my family will starve (honest belief) if I don’t work. Wonder if I would be set free?
Just puzzling how this jury acts so irrationally and hypocritically biased. Can you imagine if one of us has done the same? We world get arrested and either pay a big fine or undergo ‘community service’…. Amazing how all these people are so blind and cannot discern the why the mainstream media is constantly supporting the climate change myth….for other issues, many might find the politicians to be corrupt, but when it comes to promote this marxist-pagan agenda, then it’s alright.
Never before a generation had fast access to information as the current has, but wow, this is the most imbecile and ignorant generation of all.
“1976 UN Weather Weapons Treaty”, most people havent got the slightest clue that Weather manipulation technologies exist since the 59’s : Haarp [micro-wave Tesla tech] and Chemtrails [the spraying of our skies with nano metal & chemical particles.
Haarp can create earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, droughts, floods and can trigger volcanos.
Chemtrails is the main culprit for the destruction of many eco-systems and species.
I went along with you until you mentioned HAARP and chemtrails.
Thats were you lost it.
She’s not the only one
• 1996: A jury in Liverpool acquitted four women who caused £1.5 million damage to a Hawk jet Fighter at the British Aerospace factory;
• 1999: Three women were acquitted of causing £80,000 damage to Trident nuclear submarine equipment;
• 2000: Greenpeace director Lord Melchett and 27 activists were found not guilty of criminal damage, after ripping up a field of GM crops.
• 2000: Five Greenpeace activists were found not guilty of criminal damage after occupying a municipal incinerator in London. The prosecution (ie the taxpayer) was ordered to pay the costs of £250,000.
• 2007: Six Greenpeace activists scaled a chimney at Kingsnorth power station in Kent and daubed slogans on it causing £30,000 worth of damage. Found not guilty.
• 2015: Thirteen activists were found guilty of aggravated trespass when they blocked runways at Heathrow, causing 25 flight cancellations and what the judge called “astronomical cost”. Nevertheless, they were spared jail and given just six weeks’ suspended sentence.
• 2017: Two men painted climate change slogans on the entrance to Kings College, London. They were acquitted by a jury of a charge of criminal damage. They argued that their actions were a proportional response to the climate crisis.