Quakers join hundreds to defend jury rights
‘If juries are being silenced… or not given all the facts… that could go anywhere.’ A protestor on why she took action outside Crown Courts.
Quakers were among around five hundred people who gathered at more than fifty Crown Courts across England and Wales to uphold the rights of juries earlier this month.
The action was part of a day of national protest following concern over what Defend Our Juries has described as ‘a wave of repression in the courts’ with climate protest defendants banned from explaining to the jury their motivations. Some people have been sent to prison for trying to explain their actions in court. Others have been told not to use the words ‘climate change’ and ‘fuel poverty’.
One protestor said she went along to support a group holding placards outside Wolverhampton Crown Court. ‘In order for juries to act on their conscience, they need to understand why a defendant has done the actions that they did and this whole campaign comes on the back of a trial in 1670 of two Quaker preachers who the judge insisted were guilty, but the jury refused to find them guilty.’
She said it was ‘a growing issue because if juries are being silenced in this way or not given all the facts in this trial, that could go anywhere and is actually taking away a very basic right that we all really cherish to a fair trial’.
One of a group of seventeen protestors outside Oxford Crown Court, Maggie Bicknell said: ‘Jurors cannot reach fair conclusions about actions without all the facts and facts including motivations and reasons for acting.’
Anne Taylor, a retired teacher, told the Oxford Mail that she was there as ‘an ordinary member of the public, horrified by this threat to our democracy’.
Deborah Mitchell, from Falmouth Meeting, also presented a motion at the AGM of the probation staff inion, Napo, last month highlighting the issue. The Quaker spoke about Trudi Warner, who was threatened with prison (not imprisoned, as the Friend incorrectly stated) for sitting outside the Old Bailey silently holding a placard.
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