The Independent reports:

The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain’s green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

Kingsnorth was the centre for mass protests by climate camp activists last month. Last year, three protesters managed to paint Gordon Brown’s name on the plant’s chimney. Their handi-work cost £35,000 to remove.

I wonder if the Ploughshares folk who knocked out the Waihopai dome will try the same tactic in court. It seems there may be a legal precedent…

The campaigners had a prominent ally who turned up to testify on their behalf:

During the eight-day trial, the world’s leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to “take a leadership role” in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain.

Professor Hansen, who first alerted the world to the global warming threat in June 1988 with testimony to a US senate committee in Washington, and who last year said the earth was in “imminent peril” from the warming atmosphere, asserted that emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.

The acquittal was the second time in a decade that the “lawful excuse” defence has been successfully used by Greenpeace activists. In 1999, 28 Greenpeace campaigners led Lord Melchett, who was director at the time, were cleared of criminal damage after trashing an experimental field of GM crops in Norfolk. In each case the damage was not disputed – the point at issue was the motive.

A conservative parliamentary candidate also testified on their behalf. If Greenpeace can get prominent scientists and politicians to turn up to their trial, I wonder who the Ploughshares folk could get to testify on their behalf? 

[T]he perfectly legal means by which, according to Audrey Young’s Herald story, $80,000, probably from the Vela family, was split into eight chunks and channelled through linked companies to avoid declaration, does demonstrate quite what could be got away with under the old electoral law. You can easily enough make the case that the Electoral Finance Act is a mess, but the old way of doing thing was indefensible.

And also this question.

And with the revelations of The Hollow Men, and now this, it seems reasonable to ask whether the racing industry has anything else it would like to tell us. Because the big money that swings around there seems like a malign influence on the body politic.

No matter what the findings of the three Peters’ inquiries, we’ve seen the negative influence that big private money can have on our democratic system.  The Electoral Finance Act tried to address this but it is struggling, not least because of repeated attacks from parties that are deliberately misinterpreting it to help it fail.  That’s fine, and it’s the job of some opposition parties. But I don’t get why those same parties are rejecting out of hand the Greens’ non partisan citizens’ assembly proposal to sort this all out. Clearly politicians all have too much perceived bias to make fair electoral funding law.  The decision needs to be made by an independent group like the citizens’ assembly.

Image Credit: Chris Slane