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Posted on 09/12/2008 5:40:25 PM PDT by Reaganesque
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?”
So, they can break the law, given good intentions but, those who commit a crime and the Left determines that this person had bad intentions, then that's a hate crime. So, throw out those law books people! Liberals have the ability to tell us who is good and who is bad and guess what? They're good and any and all political opponents are bad! Isn't that an amazing coincidence? Truly, they are the master race!
Oh wait, someone already used that line!
Liberalism IS a mental disorder.
Ping
They make the OJ jury look like the Supreme Court.
It isn't happening.
Funny thing, if you look at the facts........
we are actually cooling.
Now and then I knew Al Gore is an inconvenient ass.
I don't know how it works in Britain, but I would stand by for a JNOV (judgment notwithstanding the verdict) from the court. This is an issue of law, not fact.
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
The Great Global Warming Swindle Video - back on the net!! (click here)
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Jury nullification - UK style
Also, stupid people create disasters of every kind.
I would be saving thousands if I just shot every person I met who I deemed stupid.
I sat on a jury on this side of the pond once that could not convict the rough equivalent of Williard McVane ( Ray Stephens song ) despite the stipulation of all facts in the case because “...but he really loved her”.
I am never surprised at what a jury can do now.
I’d wager at least 2 of those voting not guilty did so only to get out of the jury room and go home.
Jury nullification in action, UK style. You’d think, or hope, that jury nullification would show up in cases where the Crown persecutes legitimate self-defense rather than in cases of property vandalism, though.
Hansen has gone way over the line; this decision is tantamount to legalized terrorism.
I knew this guy was dangerous but I had no idea how far it had gone.
Aside from the insanity of this act, this opens up an enormous Pandora’s box of precedent. Move this ruling to the USA, and we have enormous problems.
Can pro-lifers in, say, South Carolina, now shoot abortion doctors at will?
Can enviornmentalists in Seattle now shoot people driving SUVs?
Can we lynch famdamentalist Muslims in the street? Child molesters? Klan members?
Picking out which laws aren’t fun to obey and which are is the end of civil society. The end of civilization. Life becomes solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.
Ask any moron who would defend this what about the carbon footprint of repair efforts and people using alternate sources of energy that may be more inefficient while the power is out.
They should shut down ALL the coal fired power plants telling the populace that they got the message, and leave 'em shut down.
See how long they last.
If only farmer Tony Martin had thought of that. “I shot the burglar because he was wrecking the environment!”
Contrary to popular belief, the Crown Prosecution Service rarely persecutes ‘legitimate’ cases of self-defence. And before anyone mentions Tony Martin, shooting a guy in the back as he’s running away doesn’t count as self-defence.
Now, as to the case at hand, it sounds like the jury was bedazzled by the evidence of this American NASA scientist that implanted the idea of climate change giving them the perfect justification under the 1971 Criminal Damage Act to act to prevent ‘a greater damage’. The fault IMHO, lies with the fact that the judge allowed this testimony in the first place....
Wull, of course I robbed the bank. I was going to take the money and donate it to fight global warming. And then I saw that bloke putting petrol in his big lorry, so I shot him dead, I did! I’m innocent! I had good intentions. Yes, I stole and took a life, but I was saving the planet.
Who paid for his trip?
I think this man does personal business on NASA time and on NASA expenses.
Does this mean you can rob a bank if the bank uses coal based power?
Most of the intelligent Brits left England before 1776, and another good portion were killed in the world wars. What’s left couldn’t roll TP off a dispensor without instructions and God’s pleadings.
Oh please, the OJ verdict might have left people with the impression that the septics were all a load of slack-jawed imbeciles who were so overawed by celebrity that they will acquit someone so obviously guilty just because he was an awesome football player. Same thing for the Michael Jackson case. But some of us are intellegent enough to know not to make such generalisations...
This is exactly why the Left loves grandiose moral crusades: it frees them from any obigation to honor conventional, “lower” notions of morality, like the notion that you shouldn’t wreck other people’s property. It’s the ultimate liberation.
Didn’t Peanut Farmer Carter’s daughter get off on a criminal trespass charge for a sit-in at a nuclear power plant back in the 70’s?
The “greater good” defense.
They used to shoot criminal trespassers. Now they let them go. (My dog doesn’t approve of this policy)
At least the OJ jury didn’t try to justify a crime; it simply pretended that he didn’t do it.
Ungland...
Bwaaaahahahahahahaha!
Liberalism IS a mental disorder.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doesn’t mental disorder imply the existence of a brain?
“Oh please, the OJ verdict might have left people with the impression that the septics were all a load of slack-jawed imbeciles who were so overawed by celebrity that they will acquit someone so obviously guilty just because he was an awesome football player.’
Not sure what you mean by “septics,” but your assessment that we are burdened by imbeciles in our liberal big cities is spot on. The big city imbeciles in America are trying to mirror their counterpart idiots in Europe’s big cities.
On the other hand, Britian has yet to produce a document like our Declaration of Independence since 1776 because the best of the best from Britian migrated here in the 18th century. I believe our British heritage, and its emigrants, is a gift to America from the divine.
Thanks for the loan. I hope we can do the same for Britian one day.
LOL, sounds like someone’s been using ‘urbandictionary’. It’s just a nickname, like ‘limeys’. Anyway like I said, I don’t generalise....
Judicial Anarchy....WOW
Check this story out - I don’t dare post it here....
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Giant_ice_penis_-_is_climate_change_to_blame?&in_article_id=304450&in_page_id=2&penis
Aw geeeeezzzz...
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