Trudi Warner will not face prison
The retired social worker faced two years in prison for holding up a sign outside a climate trial last March saying: ‘Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.’
Quakers welcomed the news last week that Trudi Warner will not face prison for her climate witness. The retired social worker faced two years in prison for holding up a sign outside a climate trial last March saying: ‘Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.’
Defend Our Juries, which many Quakers have been supporting, celebrated the High Court’s decision on 22 April that Trudi Warner would not face a full hearing. The group said it set ‘a vital precedent’ protecting protesters’ rights outside the courts. Robert Courts, the solicitor general and Conservative MP, had claimed that Warner’s actions were an attempt to illegally sway the jury. He had applied to commit her to prison, with hearings at the Royal Court of Justice on 18 and 22 April.
Trudi Warner described the High Court’s decision as ‘empowering for people who have cases coming to court’.
Last month she attended the Quaker reenactment of the 1670 Penn and Mead trial, which became a legal precedent for the rights of juries.
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