Met police officers have arrested pensioner and activist Trudi Warner, handcuffing and forcing her into a police van.
Shrinking legal rights
Her supposed offence? Holding a placard citing the law outside Woolwich Crown Court. The placard told jurors of their legal right — and legal right it is — to choose to acquit defendants because of conscience.
The judge in the Woolwich retrial of anti-genocide activists has ordered that jurors should not be reminded of their legal rights. Presumably this is because they might be tempted to exercise it and acquit the defendants. The same defendant has already been acquitted once before — evidently not the first time a judge tries this tactic.
Ms Warner knows all about that law — having been prosecuted for doing the same outside another trial. At her own trial, the [judge threw out the charges](https://www.thecanary.co/<ins class=) and derided the Crown Prosecution Service for bringing the case at all, intimating that it can’t be contempt of court to remind jurors of their legal rights.
Yet here we are again, watching the same activist handcuffed and hauled off for holding the same sign that can’t possibly be illegal:
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The right to a fair trial
Defend Our Juries commented:
“There’s a High Court Ruling about this law” – Trudi ought to know, because the case was “the Secretary General vs Trudi Warner”. She was arrested in 2023 for holding this exact sign outside the trial of Insulate Britain protesters in 2023, and she DEFEATED the accusation in the High Court, much to the embarrassment of the government.
Just as with Insulate Britain activists who took action to prevent unneccesary deaths in the face of a fuel crisis, calling on the UK government to take action to retrofit homes in order to save lives, the Filton 24 activists facing re-trial today in Woolwich Crown Court are being denied the chance to tell jurors the whole truth under threat of charges of contempt. The Filton 24 took action to prevent UK-produced weapons being used to commit the worst crimes against humanity.
It was this type of corrupting of the right to a fair trial that lead Trudi to hold her sign in 2023, which replicates a 1670 placard situated inside the Old Bailey. After a year-long ordeal being pursued by the highest legal authority in the UK government, she won her case and proved that it is not unlawful to hold a sign outside a court reminding jurors of their rights.
Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.
Jurors deserve to hear the whole truth.
Damn right. The Starmer police state is a rogue state.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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The rise of fascism.