Peace protesters cleared of air base damage!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6681639.stm

Protesters who broke into an air base intending to sabotage B-52 bombers have been cleared of all charges.
Toby Olditch, 38, and Philip Pritchard, 36, denied conspiring to cause criminal damage, saying they were trying to prevent war crimes in Iraq.

The activists, from Oxford, admitted using bolt cutters to cut through a perimeter fence at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, prior to the Iraq war.

"We have been waiting four years for this day," Mr Olditch said afterwards.

"It demonstrates that the law really can come down to reasonableness."

Mr Pritchard said: "It is a great relief and a huge vote of confidence for anti-war protesters."

The two men intended to damage the planes by clogging their engines, as well as sabotaging the runway, the jury at Bristol Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Peter Blair QC said the two had expected to be arrested and prosecuted and had made preparations for being sent to prison.

When caught by Ministry of Defence police they had coloured liquid and bags of nails and staples to use in the sabotage plan, the court heard.

Defending, Edward Rees said they carried out their protest because they believed the planes were being prepared to bomb Iraq indiscriminately with uranium and scatter bombs.

Legality of war

"These particular bombs would inevitably have resulted in indiscriminate death of civilians.

"They believed that the extent of the damage to normal life was unreasonable," he said.


Judge Tom Crowther told the jury before it retired: "I remind you again, you do not have to decide the legality of the decision to go to war."

Jurors took four hours to reach their not guilty verdicts.

Mr Olditch said afterwards: "From the outset we had been trying to prepare for all eventualities.

"The worse case scenario for us would have been prison - but nothing compares to the horror that has been inflicted on innocent Iraqis."

 

Strange, regardless of your views on the war I dont understand why it isn't still criminal damage.

 

Because they never damaged anything it would have been intent to cause criminal damage which itself only carries a light sentence

 

Didn't they cut their way through a fence ?

 

I seem to remember their defence was that they were committing a small and insignificant crime in order to try to prevent another much larger and more significant crime. Despite protestations that this verdict is not a judgment on the legality of the war, surely it's a recognition that the use of these kinds of weapons is a crime?

Glad they got off.

 

presactly!

 

Actually its not - you need to read the full judgement before you put your peanuts together to form a snickers bar

Judge Tom Crowther told the jury before it retired: "I remind you again, you do not have to decide the legality of the decision to go to war."

Only if the war was illegal would the weapons be illegal. If the weapons were deemed illegal it would have invalidated claims that the war was legal - so in answer - erm no - neither the weapons nor the war had ben deemed illegal - the jurors obviously hate capitalism and just stuffed the judges arse full of cock for a laugh

 

*yawns*:leaving:

 

I think we'd be referring to the geneva conventions' stipulations about the protection of civilian populations. The use of indiscriminate weaponry like DU and cluster munitions are arguably contrary to such international treaties.

 

Even then it wouldn't matter, as there is no supranational body that can stipulate on the legality of wars and bind nations to that decision. The jurors may have been politically motivated to find the pair innocent when in fact they were guilty of minor criminal damage, but I'm encouraged by that. Because regardless of the legality of the war, the human cost of the war is by far the worse moral crime here....

 

No court can decide on the legality of the war, not a British court anyway. Thats laughable. It is for the international court to decide and they have already ruled it was/is a legal war. There is no question in their minds

 

Actually if this verdict were a judgement on the legality of the war - which it avowedly was not - it would create a precedent that in British law at least the war would be deemed to have been illegal. That's precisely why the judge made a point of declaring that it was not a ruling on the legality of the war. If he had not distanced the proceedings from that dangerous precedent it could well have been interpreted in that way. As far as I'm aware no international body and certainly not the international criminal court has made any ruling about the legality of the war - the case has never been tested.

 

I always believed Billy's words "This isn't a court of justice son, this is a court of Law".

Minor criminal damage should suffer a minor sentence, obviously the jury thought otherwise in this case.

 

Do you think that someone who commits a small crime which harms nobody - say driving the wrong way down a one way street - in order to save someone's life should be prosecuted for that crime? That's the kind of judgement the jury were making.

 

I agree with that.
They got off with carrying out a bit of criminal damage - end of story.

Why do people colour this with a wider judgement of other unrelated aspects ?.

 

Seeing as these protesters' defence hinged upon this argument that they were committing a crime with the intention of saving lives it's hardly unrelated, it is in fact fundamental to an understanding of the case and the verdict.

 

THEY deemed it as preventing other crimes - yes they can have as a defence anything they like.
They were charged with ''conspiring to cause criminal damage''.
Are you suggesting the jurors deemed that they WERE ''saving lives'' -
Not just ''conspiring to cause criminal damage'' ?.
All I said was
WHY - all they did was cause some minor criminal damage - end of story.

 

Why did they "get away with criminal damage"? They "got away with it" because their actions were found not to be criminal, but in fact lawful - they were found not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage. Their actions were found to be lawful on the basis that their attempt to prevent a greater crime justified their methods. This is a recognition on the part of the jury that the use of DU and cluster munitions is criminal. This is why the case is so important.

They can only be not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage if their actions were a proper and lawful attempt to stop a greater crime.

 

Can you post the full or abridged judgement so I can read it for myself.

 

It was not a legal judgement, it was a jury verdict. The judge allowed the defence of the prevention of a greater crime and the jury's verdict ruled on whether this defence stood or did not stand. The verdict found that the defence stood. The actions of the pair in attempting to prevent a greater crime were found to be lawful; it necessarily follows from this that the actions they were attempting to prevent were criminal.