Obstructing the railway - Not guilty : 06/12/21

Outcome
Court date

Court:

 

Inner London Sessions Crown Court

Hearing date:

 

6th – 10th December

Bench (DJ or JPs)

 

Judge Silas Reid

Charged with:

 

Malicious Damage act 1861 section 36 Obstructing an Engine or Carriage on the Railways

Diane Warner had an additional charge for gluing herself onto the train.

Represented by:

 

HJA Audrey + Blackstone QC 

Please outline key points in prosecution and defence cases.

 

Example of witness statements and process from 08/12/21, mid-way through the trial: “First off, Judge Silas Reid read out his determination of necessity and proportionality. Necessity is out (as has happened in all other cases, so not unexpected). Proportionality will be left to the jury.
This ruling will be made available to the media. XR media has been informed.
The jury was called back to let the prosecution recall the DLR Operations Supervisor. She was very patient with all parties, clarifying any points they had. She managed the disruption safely and with minimum cancellations, which could be in the defenders' favour.
After letting the jury go, the judge set limitations on defenders' statements, for instance, keep stats to only emphasize their own personal story.
Before calling the first defendant, Mr. Blackstone, QC read out a short history of Climate change, with the judge's permission. This got over the stats warning while still educating the jury.
Then RJ was called. Without going into detail, she discovered the CEE 22 years ago and has been active ever since, a committed Christian and part of CCA (Christian Climate Action), an XR Affiliate Group. She explained how they planned the action with safety top priority for them and others. They chose the DLR because of its flat roof. They told the police they were planning it, and were told to stay out of tunnels. They did. They scouted several stations, choosing Canary Wharf because it had a platform on both sides where the train terminated. They chose Canary Wharf because it's the centre of economic activity, possibly in the world. They had to act then because Sadiq Khan had declared, "Let's get back to business as usual". We can't, business as usual is killing us. From the train roof she saw trains coming and going and customers waved to them. There was no discontent, people were getting to work.”  Each defendant provided their own circumstance, reason and details of planning and the action itself, emphasizing safety and minimal disruption with the planning and the action itself.

Summing up by the Judge focused on proportionality and key points covering the defendant’s planning and attention to safety, and the actual disruption to rail users on the day.
Plus see additional info below.

Was defence evidence submitted in writing?

 

Yes

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

All defendants provided statements from the witness box and were cross examined

What was the verdict?

 

Not guilty on all counts for all defendants.

What was the sentence?

 

What were the court costs?

 

Please add anything else relevant.

 

The Judge stopped the prosecution’s final summing up when the prosecutor introduced additional evidence referring to the Canning Town action. The prosecutor was moving into a lot of unsafe ground about XR generally, rebels in custody and other aspects of the movement in a rambling monologue, which had the Judge and rest of the court wondering what was going on. The Judge asked the defence to consider their response: a mistrial or to carry on with the striking out of the offending elements. The defence decided to continue on with the trial.

According to the Judge, this was the first test of Ziegler with the jury deciding the application of proportionality, not in a highways obstruction charge, as in Ziegler but to a different charge. Therefore this is a significant win.

After the verdict the Judge asked that the prosecution consider whether the January  DLR case is in the public interest, given the backlog of important cases.