The Jury's Out?

          Last Saturday, I joined around one hundred other concerned citizens at a Defend Our Juries rally in Parliament Square, the ideal location, you might think, for such a demonstration. It’s a high-profile, public space right outside the seat of government. However, it’s actually a traffic island and it has to be shared with other groups wanting to make an impression on Parliament and the public at large.

           The spot beneath the statue of Gandhi is especially popular and, in order to claim it, we were obliged to come to a time-share arrangement with groups demanding rights for trans-sexual people and statehood for Palestine. And, considering one of our aims was to engage the passing public, the spot was even less ideal. The foot-traffic consisted almost entirely of foreign tourists, whose interests lay elsewhere – mainly in getting selfies of themselves with the smart, white-shirted, pointy-helmeted officers of the Metropolitan police, who were there in abundance. (I imagine that the body-armour-clad snatch-squads lurking nearby were too menacing to approach and, in any case, did not project the essence of the ‘Mother of Democracies’ that the photographers were hoping to capture.)

          Still, there were some fine speeches – and an amusingly satirical poem – addressed to the assembled crowd of already-converted campaigners in the hope that TV news channels would broadcast our message, which is that we object to the judicial undermining of the long-established* principle that juries, having been presented with all the relevant information, have the right to give their verdict according to their convictions. (In March 2023, Trudi Warner sat, silently, outside Southwark Crown Court holding a poster reminding jurors of this right. The judge, presiding over a case against climate activists inside, ordered her arrest and prosecution for “contempt of court” and “conspiring to influence the jury”.)

          I can’t say for sure that our rally didn’t make it on to the national news channels but, even if it did, it would have been eclipsed by the rioting that subsequently broke out in several cities and which is attributed to politically far-right groups who blame immigrants for our social problems. That footage of violent mobs attacking premises, fellow citizens and the police made it to Australia, from where my sister sent messages of concern for her siblings at home and for the UK itself, which, as she saw it, seemed about to erupt into civil war. A few days later, the rioters (whose targets also included retail outlets, especially those selling booze, fags, trainers and phones) were faced down by far larger numbers of counter-protestors determined not to let violence prevail. Civil war was never likely to transpire, but the power of media to amplify an event is evident, which is why we too would like some exposure for our cause.

          But there might be a chance of a randomly beneficial side-effect to all this violent disorder – at least for those who have been locked up for protesting peacefully. The government promised swift justice and harsh sentences for those caught red-handed in acts of violence against society and, today, the first of those arrested were tried, convicted and sentenced. Two men are now serving two-and-a-half year terms in jail.

           Well, it was certainly swift – especially considering the utter congestion of our legal system – but whether it was harsh is a moot point. By comparison, four people are currently serving four-year custodial sentences and a fifth was jailed for five years – the longest sentences ever given in the UK for non-violent protesting. Their crime was to discuss, via Zoom, a plan to disrupt traffic on the M25. Their motive was to bring attention to the devastation that fossil-fuel extraction is wreaking on our eco-sphere, but the judge ordered that they were not allowed to mention that in the court, lest it sway the jury.

           As to which of the crimes prosecuted is more harmful to society, the jury’s certainly not out.

*Ref the prosecution, in 1670, of two Quakers, Penn and Mead, who were tried for preaching to an unlawful assembly. The jury refused to give a verdict against them.