Stansted Fifteen appeal against ‘abuse of power’ verdict
The Stansted Fifteen protestors lodge an appeal against their conviction
The Stansted Fifteen protestors charged with stopping a deportation charter flight under a terror offence have launched an appeal against the verdict.
Lawyers acting for the group, which includes Quaker Lyndsay Burtonshaw, claimed the decision was ‘an abuse of power’ and ‘a travesty of justice’. In 100 pages of submissions made to the court of appeal on 7 January, the defendants’ lawyers argue that the judge, Christopher Morgan, was biased in his summing up of the case. They also contend that he was wrong to have overruled the defence of necessity.
The documents also reveal that the legal team asked for the jury to be dismissed in the final hours of the nine-week trial, fearing that the judge’s summing up was a direction to convict.
Raj Chada, partner at Hodge Jones & Allen, who represents the activists, said: ‘It is inexplicable how these protesters were charged under this legislation, and even more so that they were found guilty.
‘It is our strongly held belief that charging them with this offence was an abuse of power by the attorney general and the CPS. It is only right and fitting that this wrongful conviction is overturned.’
Eleven people who were due to be removed from the UK on the flight are still in the country. Two have been given the right to remain.
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