On 20 July convictions against 20 climate activists were quashed by the Court of Appeal after it was revealed that key evidence was deliberately withheld from their trial.

The activists made this statement:

“We are 20 of the 114 people who were preemptively arrested near E.ON’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station over two years ago. During our trial last year we argued that our plan to safely shut down the power station was necessary in order to protect the ever escalating numbers of people dying as a result of climate change. We later found out our trial was rigged by the police and CPS to get convictions.

“Through placing undercover officers in our movement, using mass preemptive arrest and rigging our trial, the state has deliberately attempted to silence dissenting voices. This quelling of dissent, now repeated in the young people facing prison for protesting against the attacks on public services, is fundamentally undemocratic. It is yet another example of those in power protecting their own interests.

“Whether it’s E.ON Energy or News International, the government and police have a track record of colluding with big business. We need to look at the root causes of climate change, and ask why the profits of corporations such as E.ON are being prioritised over future generations, and the millions already on the front line of our changing climate. Taking action on climate change is not an act of moral righteousness, its about protecting our future. History is full of examples of ordinary people acting to defend their rights and those of others, and we need a strong movement of people doing just that.

“Winning this appeal is just one small victory in the fight against the systemically political nature of policing. We stand in solidarity with all those have suffered injustice from the state or face repression for daring to take political action.”

In his judgment the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said that the convictions had been a miscarriage of justice, and that something had gone “seriously wrong with the trial” when the prosecution failed to disclose evidence which would have “significantly undermined” their case.

The full judgment can be found here: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/barkshire-others-v-r.pdf

The move comes following revelations that critical evidence relating undercover police officer Mark Kennedy was withheld from the activists’ defence counsels and the courts. This led to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, asking senior barrister Claire Montgomery to conduct an independent review into the safety of the convictions.

The review’s conclusion prompted Starmer to telephone the activists’ barrister offering to provide assistance with getting the convictions overturned.

Today the twenty appellants have released the following statement:

Our case continues to demonstrate the state’s consistency in putting the interests of unlimited growth and unfettered capitalism before the rights and needs of people and planet. Our story began with the largest pre-emptive arrest of activists the UK has ever seen back in April 2009, and has since seen a random selection of us dragged through costly legal processes. The resulting consequence was twenty of us being convicted and sentenced for a crime we did not commit.

Today we formally launch our appeal against these convictions, following an admission by the Director of Public Prosecutions that critical evidence was withheld at the time of our trial.

Whether it’s New Labour; the Tories; or the Liberal Democrats in government, the state continues to develop an ever more extensive apparatus to quell dissent. Such apparatus has been repeatedly deployed against the climate justice movement, just as it is now being used against those young people facing prison for protesting for their future.

The launch of this appeal is just one small step in the fight back against the systemically political nature of policing. We stand in solidarity with all those who face repression for daring to take political action.

Mike Schwarz, the appellants’ lawyer issued the following:

We shall follow the DPP’s response to the appeal with interest.   We take the view that it is now incumbent on the Crown – having assiduously and in such underhand and unaccountable ways gained so much personal information about the protest movement – to make amends.  Having flouted legal rules of disclosure and kept the trial judge in the dark, the Crown should account fully and publicly to the Court of Appeal.  They owe this not only to these appellants, but also to the jury who convicted them on a false prospectus and to the public who footed the bill for these extravagant undercover operations and futile political trials.  Disturbingly, I fear that this is not an isolated incident.   Kennedy himself has confirmed that he was just one of a large number of covert officers spying on the protest movement.  It is likely that there are many other miscarriages of justice.

Mike Schwarz, who represents those 20 defendants made the following comment.

The development is of course welcome. It is the first official recognition that an undercover police officer played a role in this case and that there was non-disclosure of relevant evidence to the defence during the trial process. However, it has taken 2 years to get this far and this has only come about as a result of the persistence of climate campaigners.

The development also begs more questions than it answers. The prosecution have not provided us with any of the relevant material and nor have they said that they will do so. They have not given us any information about the role the undercover police officer played. Indeed they have still not named the officer.

The prosecution have said nothing about how the material came not to be disclosed to the defence. It is significant that this development comes from the Crown Prosecution Service. The police – Nottinghamshire police, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, the Metropolitan Police, ACPO – remain tight lipped.

The prosecution have not even purported to address the wider serious questions of the principle and policies and compliance with policies surrounding the use of undercover police against protest movements, not just climate campaigners on this occasion.

I have concerns that a criminal appeal may fail to address these issues and will therefore be as unsatisfactory a mechanism for the scrutiny of these important constitutional issues as those other reviews set up by, among others, HMIC, the IPCC and SOCA.

Perhaps above all, the impression remains that the Establishment have sought to undermine those campaigning against the urgent and extreme perils of climate change and, once discovered, grudgingly are conceding only as much as they have to when they have to.

This development is highly unusual both in speed and form and is indicative of the escalating scandal around undercover policing and the withholding of evidence from the Ratcliffe trial. Implicit in this step is acceptance by the Crown itself that undercover officer Kennedy’s deep involvement in the planning of the proposed action at Ratcliffe power station (in particular the evidence he will have provided at the time to his superiors) is as crucial to the safety of the convictions of the 20 as it was to the decision to discontinue proceedings against the 6.

The CPS has still to hand over all of the material in its possession, not least the tape recordings made by PC Kennedy at the school in Nottingham, which may well contain evidence that could undermine the safety of the 20 convictions handed down in December.

Like the other inquiries that have so far been announced into the exposure of undercover policing and the withholding of evidence, the CPS inquiry is far from independent. The inquiry is entirely in the hands of the CPS and will be conducted by a leading barrister hand-picked by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mike Schwarz, the Ratcliffe defendants’ solicitor said today:

“The news that another inquiry into this issue has been launched shines yet another light on the many serious issues arising from the police operation and the conviction of my clients. It should not be forgotten that the Crown have failed to account to the defence for the material in its possession. Requests for disclosure were first made in December last year and repeated since, but have not been answered.”

Speaking on the Today programme this morning about the tape recordings made by PC Kennedy, Ben Stewart, one of the Ratcliffe Defendants convicted in December said:

“These tapes should be released. They almost certainly led to the trial of the six collapsing and we believe it could exonerate the 20 activists convicted. The tapes contain information that goes to the heart of the case and the jury should have been allowed to hear them. The CPS inquiry must answer why these recordings were withheld.”

This website was set up in Autumn last year to support the 26 individuals who had been charged with planning to shut down Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station for a week.

The individuals were part of the 114 arrested at the Iona School in Nottingham on Easter Monday, 2009. The incident was the largest pre-emptive arrest on environmental campaigners and prompted widespread concerns for civil liberties at the time.

Now these concerns have deepened to unimagined depths.

Twenty of the activists plead not guilty on the grounds they were acting out of necessity in order to prevent carbon emissions. They had a trial late last year, and were found guilty after being accused by the prosecution of merely seeking publicity.

Six of the activists were due to plead not guilty as they simply had not made up their mind. They learned of the plan the day they turned up at the school, and had made no commitment to taking part when arrested.

This second trial never took place.

When the defence lawyers requested information regarding the role of undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, the prosecution dropped the case within hours.

PC Kennedy, posing as activist ‘Flash’, was not just one of the 114 arrested, but had been involved in planning the power station shut down from the very beginning. He drove for the first fact-finding mission to the site four months before the action was due to take place. He hired the truck to transport all the equipment.

Why would the police and prosecution rather drop a trial they’d been working on for months, at great expense, than release a single piece of information about PC Mark Kennedy?

Perhaps because it could have proved the innocence of all 26 defendants.

We now know just what the evidence was: a series of covertly recorded tapes PC Mark Kennedy produced while the activists were being briefed at the school.

PC Mark Kennedy himself  confirmed that these recordings would have proved the innocent of the six whose case was dropped. But it might also be the case that they demonstrate the innocence twenty already found guilty, by proving their intentions were to stop carbon emissions.

The police chose to press ahead with the charges despite the evidence they received via these recordings. They later chose to withhold the recordings from the Crown Prosecution Service. It goes without saying that this is a very serious offence.

A New Campaign is Launched

The issue of undercover police officers  doesn’t just raise questions about the Ratcliffe Defendants. This issue runs to the very heart of everyone’s freedoms, liberties, and right to protest.

A new campaign has been launched. It needs your help and support. Click HERE to get involved.

Plea For Dosh

This case has taken its financial toll very heavily on those 20 activists who were dragged through a legal process lasting almost two years, resulting in a month long trial and subsequent convictions.

If you are able to help share the burden of their extensive costs in anyway, please do give:

Please make bank transfers to:

The Skint Fund
SC: 08-92-99
AN: 65385883

Or post a cheque to:

The Skint Fund,
18 Stratford Street
Oxford
OX4 1SW

Many Thanks,
info@ratcliffeontrial.org

I have a number of concerns and comments.

First, there is the process. This is an entirely unsatisfactory way for information about PC Kennedy’s undercover operations to come out. The police and Crown generally should have disclosed all this material to the defence and / or the Crown Court judges who dealt with the trials of the acquitted 6 or the convicted 20 before their cases came to trial.

Specifically, so far as PC Kennedy’s apparent contact with Mr Clifford is concerned, any information from or about PC Kennedy should be disclosure direct and formally to those affected, the defendants in particular. PC Kennedy can, for example, provide the defence and prosecution teams with a statement. Anything short of this would amount to disclosure by tabloid.

Second, there is the content. It reinforces me in my view that the role of PC Kennedy in the planning of the action at Ratcliffe power station is as central to the safety of the convictions of the 20 as it was decisive in causing the collapse of the trial of the 6.

Third, there is the way ahead. I do not think that a referral to the IPCC, as confirmed by the IPCC yesterday, is sufficient either to get to the bottom of what has happened, or investigate reports of more widespread police failings. The IPCC have, for example, limited themselves to the issue of police disclosure in the Ratcliffe trials.

An inquiry by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which has also been mentioned in the press, is and will be seen to be an exercise in the police investigating the police. A far wider, more powerful, independent enquiry is required – a judge-led enquiry for which the Macpherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder provides an off the shelf model, looking as it did at both the specifics of the case and the wider concerns about policing and race.

What has so far emerged of the PC Kennedy episode highlights similar concerns about the police’s conduct of the Ratcliffe case. It also raises wider concerns about the use of undercover police, particularly their use against those exercising democratic rights of protest and expression; as well as concerns about the policing of protests generally, the police services’ policies and their accountability.

Mike Schwarz
Solicitor for the acquitted 6 and the convicted 20 Ratcliffe environmental campaigners

Today’s trial against six people charged with conspiracy to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009 will collapse on its first day at Nottingham Crown Court. Activists exposed that an undercover police officer had been spying on them for seven years, and had actually helped organise the proposed power-station shut-down. Barristers submitted that the defendants could not have a fair trial if the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose details of the officers’ involvement.

After 20 months of investigation the Crown Prosecution Service cited new ‘previously unavailable evidence’ found on 5 January 2011. On Friday last week they informed the defence that they will no longer be pressing charges.

The six defendants were among the 114 climate campaigners arrested at Nottingham’s Iona School over the Easter weekend in April 2009. The incident was the largest pre-emptive arrest of environmental activists in UK history and was widely criticised as a serious erosion of the right to protest.

Oliver Knowles, one of the defendants in the collapsed trial said:

“I was arrested despite having made no decision to take part in the conspiracy, having only learnt of the planned action an hour or two before the police raid. The police knew this full well as one of their number was present in the room. Despite this they went ahead with my arrest and subsequent prosecution. This raises serious questions about the police operation.”

Knowles added “From intrusive surveillance of climate campaigners, to the recent kettling of school kids, the police continue to show their utter contempt for protesters.”

Mike Schwarz, a solicitor at the Bindmans law firm who represented the activists said,

“I have no doubt that our attempts to get disclosure about Kennedy’s role has led to the collapse of the trial. It is no coincidence that just 48 hours after we told the CPS our clients could not receive a fair trial unless they disclosed material about Kennedy, they halted the prosecution. Given that Kennedy was, until recently, willing to assist the defence, one has to ask if the police were facing up to the possibility their undercover agent had turned native.”

In December last year a further 20 of the 114 stood trial accused of the same offence. They pleaded not guilty on the grounds they did intend to carry out the action, but out of the necessity in order to stop 150,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

It has come to light that PC Kennedy was far from a passive observer of the plans to shut down Ratcliffe on Soar power station. Evidence put before the court reveals that he hired and paid for a 7.5tonne truck, due to transport the bulk of equipment to the action. He was also lined up for a role as one of three key climbers.

Bradley Day, a defendant in the previous trial, added:

“Mark Kennedy drove a small group of us to visit Ratcliffe on Soar power station four months before the action was due to take place, when only a handful of people were involved. The police could have put a stop to our intentions there and then, but instead proceeded with an expensive police operation involving over 400 officers raiding a Nottingham school, and an investigation lasting almost two years.”

Danny Chivers, a defendant in the collapsed second trial, commented: “The pre-emptive arrest was controversial enough at the time, but we now know it was even worse than we realised. The police appear to have waited for the opportunity to arrest over a hundred people, hold them for 24 hours, and take their DNA, before releasing them onto the streets of Nottingham in the middle of night with money and phones confiscated. Political protest of the kind being planned that day presents no risk to the public, yet the police consistently resort to the most extreme tactics they can muster. Hopefully the collapse of our trial will rule out the pre-emptive arrest of protesters for good.”

The defendants in the second case hadn’t yet decided whether or not to join the action when the police arrived at the school and arrested everyone. They have therefore been charged with conspiracy simply for thinking about taking climate action.

This second trial is going to be really important with respect to police tactics and the right to protest. Once again, the defendants need your help – if you can visit the court, send statements of support to info@ratcliffeontrial.org or donate to the travel & expenses fund (see the “How to Help” page) they’d all massively appreciate it.

Keep an eye on this blog – more information will follow soon!

The defendants were given a range of sentences, with the majority receiving conditional discharges – a total of 13. These were either 18 month or 2 years in length.  2 of the defendants who were given conditional discharges were ordered to pay costs of £500 and £1000 respectively.

The judge gave the remaining 5 defendants who were present community service orders, stating that this was due to their previous convictions, which he claimed made him unable to pass a more lenient sentence. The community service orders varied between 60 and 90 hours.

The remaining 2 defendants will be sentenced at a later date.

Before they left the dock for the final time, the judge commended the defendants on being some of the most ‘polite’ and ‘punctual’ he had come across.

Upon leaving court, one of the defendants, Claire Witney, gave this statement which was read as follows:

“We are twenty of the 114 who were part of the biggest pre-emptive arrest in British history, as part of the increasing legal drive which prioritises the protection of polluting business, and not people. Post-sentencing, we still feel our actions are a reasonable response to the irrational destructive situation of runaway climate change that we are in. As erratic weather patterns create more disasters, as people continue to choke on fumes and see their houses engulfed in floods, taking action on climate change is no longer an option – it’s a necessity. We want to reiterate our support for everyone everywhere fighting for climate justice.”

In the meantime, the trial is generating a lot of discussion from many quarters…

Tonight, international environmental lawyer Polly Higgins will appear on a panel at the London Southbank featuring former minister Michael Meacher MP and Transition Towns’ founder Rob Hopkins. Polly will be talk about the trial, comparing the defendants to Sophie Scholl and her friends. Sophie Scholl famously blew the whistle on Hitler and the gassing of the Jews. Allowed just one comment at her trial, she stated it was only matter of time before the true destroyers were in the dock. Within two years they were.

Meanwhile, the defendants’ solicitor Mike Schwarz writes in the Guardian today. He explored reasons why the Nottingham jury found the defendants Guilty, unlike the jury at Maidstone in 2008 who found 6 Greenpeace activists Not Guilty following a similar necessity case.

Mike explains:

In the science world, “climategate” has been exploited by “contrarians” to reduce the proportion of the population who are concerned about climate change, even as mean world temperatures rise. Internationally, the Copenhagen and Cancún summits have failed to provide legally binding and effective agreements to tackle climate change. In the UK, the focus is on the reduction of the deficit through pinching financial short-termism. In an austere new world, the public may be less receptive to arguments of morality and altruism which recognise our responsibility to the world community and future generations.

He goes on to point out that, regardless of the verdict, the Nottingham defendants did achieve something perhaps far more significant.

The crown tried, at a pre-trial hearing, to prevent the Nottingham jury even hearing the defendants’ case.

On 21 May 2010 a high court judge rejected that argument, saying that “the circumstances in which a court will withdraw a defence from the jury will be very rare indeed”. This may be the legacy of the Nottingham defendants.

The campaign is far from over: Climate defence is not an offence!