Section 14 - Guilty: 09/06/21

Court
City of London Magistrates Court
Charge
Section 14
Outcome
Guilty
Court date

Court:

City of London Magistrates’ – Court 3

Hearing date:

 

Wednesday, 9th June 2021

Bench (DJ or JPs)

 

DJ Ms Baraitsar

Charged with:

 

S14 on 1/9/2020 in Parliament Square

Represented by:

Self

Please outline key points in prosecution and defence cases.

 

Defendant tried to say he had arrived in Parliament Square to find the Gardens, where protest was allowed to happen, chock-a-block full. There was no way he could socially distance there. CPS showed the bwv to explain he never said that to the arresting officer.

His defence was not only based on that, he also stipulated:

  1. The area to protest was not proportional because of the Covid-19 rules. Social distancing ensured it could only hold less than 1400 protesters (Ass. Comm. Rolfe helped him with that, an experience from previous trials). The 5 protest marches on that first day had more than 10,000 protesters. This prevented the majority of protesters from being able to protest, contrary to their human rights in Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR.
  2. The instructions given to him by the arresting officer were unenforceable: he couldn’t obey them without breaking the law.
  3. The arresting officer did not use condition 3 of the S14: the max size of the protest must not exceed the Covid rules. He suggested Defendant go to the Gardens. This was an alteration to the senior officer’s instruction.

 

Was defence evidence submitted in writing?

Yes

Did defence witness(es) give evidence in person? Were they cross-examined?

Yes

Yes

What was the verdict,
sentence, costs?

 

Guilty

12 mths c/d; £350 costs; £22 v/s to be paid in 14 days.

“Necessity: it is not the object of this court to decide the health of the planet”.

Please add anything else relevant.

 

A/C Rolfe insists she was told there were only 300-400 protesters whereas, in reality there were more than 1,000. Based on this, she reckoned Parliament Square Gardens was “large enough” to hold the protesters. The judge believed her.

She continued with similar S14s for the rest of the rebellion in spite of the turnout being well over 1,400 every day.