14 local residents defend historic role of juries outside Sheffield Crown Court

This morning I joined Defend our Juries outside Sheffield Crown Court.

Here is the press release.

Local residents hold signs outside Sheffield Crown Court

This morning, 16.04.2024 at 8:45am a group of Sheffield residents sat outside Sheffield Crown Court holding signs with the words “The right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions” 

Joining hundreds of others around England and Wales as part of the Defend Our Juries National Week of Action, April 13th – 21st, where every crown court in England & Wales will be visited by people to remind jurors that they have the right to acquit a defendant based on their conscience, irrespective of the directions of the judge.

Their signs display the centuries-old principle of ‘jury equity’, i.e. the right of all jurors in British courtrooms to acquit a defendant according to their conscience and irrespective of the directions of the judge. Famously, in 1984, a jury acquitted the civil servant, Clive Ponting, on this principle after he exposed government misinformation to the public and Parliament concerning the ‘Falklands War’

Part or a nation wide campaign this silent vigil is happening across the country.

Local residents take part 

Explaining why they are prepared to risk arrest for this legal principle local resident Geraldine Roberts, a resident of Norfolk Park and volunteer at the S2 Food Bank, said: 

“We are outside the Court to let people know that trial by jury is under threat. Some judges are preventing Defendants from explaining the reason for their actions which means that  jurors aren’t allowed to  hear the full facts and therefore can’t exercise their own judgement on the Guilt or Innocence of the person on trial.”

Geraldine (Front) holds a sign outside Sheffield Crown Court 

Trudi Warner to appear at High Court this week on Contempt of Court Charge

On 18th April the permission hearing for the Attorney General’s application to commit to prison Trudi Warner, retired social worker, will be heard in the Royal Courts of Justice. The basis of the application? Trudi held up a sign outside a court displaying the well-established principle of jury equity. 

A silent procession, sign holders walk to the Crown Court 

Risk of arrest

By displaying these signs, the group, like Trudi and two young women who were arrested by the MET police last October, run the risk of arrest. Their message to the Judiciary and Attorney general is clear, if you are going to prosecute Trudi Warner, you must prosecute us too.

Collective action works

There are strong indications that united, collective action to defend the principle of jury equity is proving effective. Just days after the Solicitor General’s announcement to prosecute Warner, 252 people gathered outside 25 crown courts across England and Wales, holding similar signs in solidarity with Trudi Warner. None were arrested and there has been no indication of a police investigation since then. An investigation into people previously arrested for displaying posters with the same message has now been discontinued. In December last year, over 500 people gathered to display the same message at over 50 crown courts, again none were arrested. In February this year, 300 signed a letter to the new Solicitor General saying “since you’re prosecuting Trudi Warner, you should prosecute us too”.

As Trudi Warner’s permission hearing is heard this week in the Royal Courts of Justice, hundreds of people are expected to defend the message of jury equity outside every crown court in England and Wales. 

The Defend our Juries campaign has gathered powerful support from eminent professors of law, such as Professor Richard Vogler and Professor John Spencer. In the words of Professor Vogler:

“George Orwell noticed the tendency of repressive law to degenerate into farce, when truth becomes a lie and common sense is heresy. This is worth remembering now that the solicitor general, Michael Tomlinson KC, has concluded that it is right to take action against … Trudi Warner, for holding up a sign outside a criminal court, simply proclaiming one of the fundamental principles of the common law: the right of a jury to decide a case according to its conscience.”

14 Local residents held signs outside the Court this morning

Mounting concern over jury trial

The demonstrations come amid mounting public concern that political trials are being turned into show trials, after a succession of jury acquittals, including the acquittal of the Colston 4 in January 2022, have embarrassed the Government and certain corporate interests. In the Colston case, Suella Braverman, who was Attorney General at the time, decided that the jury of Bristol people had got it wrong, and brought a successful appeal to the Court of Appeal, changing the law.

Measures to stop juries reaching not guilty verdicts

Measures being taken by courts in response include defendants being banned from explaining to the jury why they did what they did, even people who have taken peaceful direct action are now being sent to prison for up to 3 years. In some cases, people have been sent to prison just for trying to explain their actions to the jury for saying the words ‘climate change’ and ‘fuel poverty’ in court. Defendants are banned from explaining the principle of ‘jury equity’ to the jury, even though it is a well established principle of law, which is set in marble at the original entrance to the Old Bailey. Defendants have been found guilty after a judge threatened jurors with criminal charges if they applied their conscience to the trial. Legal defences have been removed by the Court of Appeal, leaving people unable to properly explain their motivations for taking action to juries, and declaring evidence of the climate crisis ‘inadmissible’. 

NOTES

About Defend our Juries
Defend our Juries is a new campaign with 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.

See Defend Our Juries website: https://defendourjuries.org/

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

“How UK courts became the new climate protest battleground” (Drilled, January 2024) 

“Defying a judge is not always contempt of court” (The Times, behind a paywall)

“Trudi Warner reveals the dark secret of English courts: juries do have the right to follow their consciences” (The Guardian, 27 September 2023)

“A climate of injustice” (the Ecologist)

“Charge us with contempt too, say 40 people, if climate activist prosecuted” (Guardian, 17 August 2023)

See also the short film, “Right to Acquit”