On 19^th September at 1pm over 40 people from the Defend our Juries campaign and 10 scientists from Extinction Rebellion came together outside of the Ministry of Justice to call out Judge Hehir for not allowing Professor Bill McGuire to speak at the trail of the Whole Truth five: Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin who were on trial in July this year for planning to disrupt the M25 to pressure Rishi Sunak’s government to stop fuelling climate breakdown with new oil and gas licences.

This action comes in response to the science being silenced and the longest sentences in living memory being passed on peaceful protestors as 40 nonviolent people of conscience are currently locked up in UK prisons for acting to save all life with some of these people have been remanded to prison before taking action. The Whole Truth Five were found guilty of ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance’, after Judge Hehir removed all legal defences available to them, and ruled that information about the climate crisis could not be submitted as it was ‘inadmissible opinion or belief’. As scientists we believe this to be untrue and our work is not an opinion or a belief but fact and the fact is that human-induced climate change is happening and that people across the globe are suffering as a direct result.

Dr Hazel Beaumont, Senior Lecturer in Geoscience at The University of the West of England, who acted this afternoon said:

‘It is outrageous that scientists were not allowed to speak up at trial, our work is crucial to the understanding of our earth, its processes and all we do upon it. The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) states clearly that we need strong policy updates and changes by 2030 as we need to half the current level of emissions. It is evidently clear that Labour needs to invest its £28 billion pledge to even begin to protect the people the government claims to look after’

In reaction to the Judge Hehir’s statement Professor Bill McGuire at University College London stated that:

‘The characterisation of climate breakdown as a matter of opinion and belief is completely nonsensical and demonstrates extraordinary ignorance’.

Sentences have provoked outcry from UK lawyers, celebrities and the UN

These sentences have caused public outcry, 1,200 of the UK’s leading legal and cultural figures have written to the Attorney General, decrying ‘‘one of the greatest injustices in a British court in modern history’. They have called for an urgent meeting with the new Attorney General Richard Hermer to discuss not only the Whole Truth Five’s sentences, but the jailing of all truth tellers and their silencing in court.

Furthermore, UN special rapporteur Michel Forst, who came to the UK to bear witness the trial itself, has described the 4-5 year sentences as
“not acceptable in a democracy”. Mr Forst, who observed the trial, said:

“The idea that a judge could decide all alone what is acceptable evidence to present to the jury is something which is, for me, difficult  to understand, how a democracy would not be able to allow the defendant to present the evidence properly…”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Please credit these photos to Crispin Hughes

Location for photos and video here

About Defend our Juries:

Defend Our Juries has the following aims:

1. to bring to public attention the programme to undermine trial by jury in the context of those taking action to expose government dishonesty and corporate greed
2. to raise awareness of the vital constitutional safeguard that juries can acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, irrespective of a judge’s direction that there is no available defence (a principle also known as ‘jury equity’ or ‘jury nullification‘)
3. to ensure that all defendants have the opportunity to explain their actions when their liberty is at stake, including by explaining their motivations and beliefs.

References

For a list of trusted sources on the climate crisis see here:
https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/external-links

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01132-6 – Quantifying the human cost of global warming, Nature sustainability paper.

“Calls for the Crown to Stop Prosecuting Peaceful Climate Protesters as Prisons Clogged and Criminals are ‘Let Off’” (Byline Times, May 2024)

“Assault on rights of juries’: activist decries Tory challenge to legal defence for protesters” (The Guardian, Feb 2024)  

Not acceptable in a democracy’: UN expert condemns lengthy Just Stop Oil sentences (The Guardian, July 2024) 

IPCC, 2024: The evidence is clear: the time for action is now. We can halve emissions by 2030: https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/04/04/ipcc-ar6-wgiii-pressrelease/

See also the short film, “Right to Acquit”

Page 75 Investigates – Full interview with UK Special Rapporteur Michel Forst July 2024