Government drops appeal against Trudi Warner

The case against campaigner Trudi Warner has been dropped

Quakers celebrated this month when the government dropped a contempt case against Trudi Warner.

The campaigner was arrested after she stood outside an inner London crown court last year holding a sign saying: ‘Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.’ The witness took place outside a trial against Insulate Britain activists, in which they had been banned from mentioning the climate crisis.

The case against Trudi Warner was thrown out in April but government lawyers were appealing against the judge’s ruling. However, a lawyer from the new Labour government’s legal department said on 15 August it had ‘further considered this case and decided not to pursue the appeal’. 

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Britain Yearly Meeting, said on X on 17 August, following the news: ‘Good. They should never have been prosecuting her anyway. All she did was inform the jury of their rights, as British Quakers have been pointing out.’

Many Quakers have been campaigning for Trudi Warner, who faced the possibility of two years in prison, as part of the witness by the group Defend Our Juries.

Trudi Warner said: ‘It’s wonderful that the right of juries to acquit according to their conscience is now unequivocally established as a legal principle in the UK. This will be more important than ever in our barely functioning democracy where people are unequal under the law.

‘My case, and the response of the people in Defend Our Juries, has shown how effective collective action can be.’

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