Some of the Greenpeace 28 - first day of the retri
The day started with the continued cross-questioning of Spencer Cooke:
he told the jury that if not for the violence offered by Mr Brigham, the
volunteers would have successfully removed the whole crop of GM
forage maize including roots from the field. He explained that in fact
AgrEvo "had always advised farmers not to intervene"
if there should be a protest against the GM crop they were growing.
Spencer said, "This is, as far as I'm aware, the only time a farmer has
intervened during such a protest."
Judy Khan then called Tim Copley to the witness box. Tim Copley
confirmed he was the Manager of the Active Supporters Unit at
Greenpeace, that he had a masters degree in both geography and
business administration, and that he had worked full-time for
Greenpeace since 1994. Before the events at Walnut Tree Farm, Tim
had been involved in other Greenpeace campaigns connected with GM:
work to try and influence a proposed EU Directive about the patenting of
life; the "Protect your Food" project in connection with the Beanfeast
campaign; the True Food campaign encouraging local restaurants to go
GM free and conducting supermarket tours; in spring 1999 he had
organised a national conference for a Greenpeace True Food Volunteers
Skillshare which had successfully worked with 250 to 270 volunteers.
Of the Lyng site, Tim explained that he believed there was a "very
significant risk of escape of GM material" to neighbouring farms, wildlife
and soil which incorporated ﾑproperty'. He had been confident that he
and the other volunteers would succeed with removing the whole GM
forage maize crop "without a shadow of a doubt", which would be
securely bagged up and returned to its owners, AgrEvo. Tim Copley told
Mr Farmer, prosecuting, that before the action, he had "expressed my
personal view to my director, John Sauven, that I believed Greenpeace
should take action against the field-scale trials". He told the jury "the
trials in the open air are a long way from the precautionary principle".
The next defendant to testify was Rachel Murray, Actions Unit Assistant
at Greenpeace, and PA to the Director of the Actions Unit. A member of
Greenpeace for ten years and an employee for two, she told the jury
that with regard to the GM open air trials "you can't let something out
and walk away from it, and then come back and expect everything to be
all right". Rachel had investigated the logistics of the earlier idea of
covering the contaminated field with a tent-like structure, but explained
that it would not do the job since "it would have been a good photo
opportunity, but it would not have solved any problems".
Rachel described the three different types of action taken by
Greenpeace: (i) direct action - usually an attempt to put an end to
something which might harm the environment, an end in itself, for
example the events at Walnut Tree Farm; (ii) direct communication - an
event engineered to direct a message at a particular source, for example
the banner on Nelson's Column outside Canada House which had read
"God Save Canada's Rainforest"; also the True Food campaign's
supermarket tours; (iii) photo opportunity such as the dumping of soya
outside No. 10 Downing Street - an effort to prompt discussion about an
issue.
She described the direct action at Lyng as "a final resort", having
explored all other possibilities. Asked about being on Mr Brigham's land
by the prosecution, Rachel replied, "In normal circumstances I knew I
shouldn't really be there, but these circumstances were not normal. My
need to stop that crop from flowering was greater than my need to
appease Mr Brigham".
Judy Khan then called the next defendant to the witness box, Iain
McSeveny, a chartered accountant for Greenpeace since 1989 and an
active supporter of Greenpeace since 1986. Having first become aware
of the issue of genetic modification in 1995, Iain was fully aware of the
potential of serious pollution by June 1999, telling the jury, "I felt that
we have to take steps now to prevent the countryside becoming a GM
countrysideﾅ that the stakes are very high, not just for Greenpeace but
for all of us."
Of the field-scale trials of genetically modified crops, Iain said, "There
has been no proper debate, there has been no proper science, there has
been no proper research."
Tim Hewke, Researcher on Greenpeace's Amazon campaign testified
next. He told the jury that he had been involved in driving the lorry to
the Lyng site. He also confirmed that he had been responsible for
checking the layouts and whereabouts of the AgrEvo headquarters at
Kings Lynn; for putting the bags and tarpaulin on the back of the
dropside truck. His role was to ensure all of the bags of GM crops were
zipped up, loaded correctly and secured with two tarpaulins with straps.
About the prosecution's photograph of some open bags, Tim explained
that this did not represent the state he had left them in, having been
passing zipped up bags to Chris Holden on the truck.
Asked by the prosecution what his main concern was, he answered, "I
was concerned to remove genetic pollution wherever it is", adding a
reference to the case of the monarch butterfly in America as the species
infected by GM material: "Nobody knows what effect GM has on
biodiversity."
The trial continues on Monday.
