The High Court is due to announce next week whether to allow legal action by the government against a protestor who held a placard outside a court, reports James Cracknell

‘Defend Our Juries’ activists holds placards outside Wood Green Crown Court last month (credit Sabrina Merolla)

Haringey activists have staged a protest outside Wood Green Crown Court in solidarity with a woman who faces being put on trial for contempt of court over holding a placard.

Retired social worker Trudi Warner, from Walthamstow, was arrested after she held a sign outside a London court in March last year ahead of a trial of climate change activists. The sign was directed at jurors, telling them: “You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.”

But the message led to Trudi’s arrest and the Attorney General’s Office announcing last September its decision to take legal action against her, prompting a wave of protests outside courts around the UK, in a similar style to Trudi’s own.

Outside Wood Green Crown Court this week, prior to a decision due to be announced at the High Court on Monday (22nd) over whether the legal action against Trudi can go ahead, Haringey activists from the Defend Our Juries campaign staged their protest.

Jane Leggett, a retired teacher and local resident, said: “I am taking this action to bring attention to the alarming changes severely limiting our rights to protest that very few of my friends and neighbours know about.

“It’s so important that the legal system does not stop people from telling the whole truth in court, and does not stop jurors from making the decision they think is right when they have all the information.

“Our society often seems to allow those in power to lie with impunity, but the truth – the whole truth – ought to matter. At times like these, it is more important than ever that rights which have been enshrined in law for hundreds of years are not abandoned.”

Sarah Montgomery, another Haringey resident and member of the Climate Choir, claims the recent action by the Attorney General’s Office undermines the basis of the UK’s justice system.

She said: “In court defendants are required to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If people are arrested for drawing attention to the climate and ecological emergency, and are forbidden to mention the words ‘climate change’ or ‘fuel poverty’ they are, in effect, forbidden from telling their whole truth and their defence is taken away from them.”

In total 252 people have gathered this week outside 25 crown courts across England and Wales, holding 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, while in February this year, 300 signed a letter to the solicitor general, saying: “Since you’re prosecuting Trudi Warner, you should prosecute us too.”

Addressing the High Court, government lawyer Aidan Eardley KC claimed Trudi’s protest represented “a confrontation with jurors, calculated objectively, and intended subjectively, to tell them how to go about doing their job” and added that the public need to be reassured they can perform their job as jurors “without being bombarded with instructions from bystanders”.

But the Defend our Juries campaign has gathered support from professors of law such as Professor Richard Vogler and Professor John Spencer. Prof Vogler said: “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 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.”

Defend Our Juries is also highlighting recent repressive measures taken by courts such as defendants being banned from explaining to the jury why they did what they did, while in some cases people have been sent to prison for using words like ‘climate change’ and ‘fuel poverty’ in court.

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