The morning was taken up by Mr Farmerﾒs final speech for the prosecution. Mr
Farmer instructed the jury to consider each defendant individually with regard
to two questions: i) were they damaging that property to prevent damage to
other property, and was there an immediate need for this? ii) was the action
taken honestly believed to be reasonable in all the circumstances?
Farmer said ﾓthe qualification for being on a jury is not to be niceﾔ and added
that although the defendants had been defended ﾓwith charm and styleﾔ,
ﾓwhether they are nice or not is neither here nor there. Being of good
character is no defence.ﾔ So the prosecution also believed that destroying the
GM crop after having tried all other means of having it removed, was ﾓnot a
defenceﾔ.<br><br>Farmer insisted that, ﾓApparently some of them donﾒt trust each other enough
to talk in the office. They pass bits of paper to each otherﾔ and that
Greenpeace was a small organisation in terms of voting power, actually a
rather tiny organisation ﾓin which,ﾔ Farmer said, ﾓthe defendants thought ﾑas
Greenpeace directs, so we doﾒ. It is not exercising any initiative.ﾔ<br><br>With reference to the action at Lyng, Farmer said that while smoking pollutes
the atmosphere, we donﾒt ﾓgo around pulling cigarettes out of peopleﾒs mouthsﾔ
and went on to say that Greenpeace is ﾓgoing about burning many, many
gallons of fuel in its vehicles.ﾔ He reminded the jury that some defendants had
said that the GM crop at Lyng was to be destroyed by a chemical company,
asking them whether it was ﾓOK to destroy the juryﾒs notesﾅ and the
Millennium Domeﾔ since they were ﾓgoing to be destroyed anyway.ﾔ Farmerﾒs
comment about the crop being owned by AgrEvo rather than the farmer was:
ﾓSo what? Thatﾒs a piece of naked propaganda. If there was an immediate
need to protect property, it doesnﾒt matter who the owner is.ﾔ<br><br>After lunch, Owen Davies QC gave the final speech for the defence. Davies
began by saying that if there was one theme running through the trial, it was
that of risk. He said that the constitution of risk varies as does the degree to
which different risks can be minimised, and gave the example that ten years
ago Mr Farmer ﾓmight have been saying the same about beefﾔ as he was about
the relative lack of risks surrounding GM crops. He said ﾓmany concerns
expressed as alarmist at the time have turned out to be true.ﾔ
Davies said that the phrases that had come up repeatedly were ﾑprecautionary
principleﾒ and ﾑsubstantial equivalenceﾒ, the latter of which was a euphemism
designed to persuade us to think that if something looks the same it pretty
much is the same - for example: all cows look the same, so the one with BSE is the same as the one without. Davies said that the prosecution would have the
jury believe that the former ideology was a ﾑbattyﾒ one which stood in the way
of progress, but explained that in fact all jurors were asked to act on a
precautionary principle in that a defendant could not be found guilty unless the
prosecution had persuaded them of this beyond reasonable doubt.<br><br>The jury were then urged to consider all the defendants as though they were
ﾓin the same boatﾔ with ﾓnothing really to choose between one and the otherﾔ.
Owen Davies explained that the case was not about the defendantsﾒ believing
they had a ﾑrightﾒ to go on to other peopleﾒs land. Nor was it the case that the
honest belief of the defendants had been challenged by the prosecution. In
fact, Davies added the prosecution had ﾓboth misunderstood and
misrepresented what this case is all about.ﾔ Davies said that the jury might
find that the analogies and metaphors used by the prosecution had been
misleading. That the juryﾒs papers and the Millennium Dome should be
equated with GM crops was questionable since the first two were not dangerous
to the environment.<br><br>The GM crop at Lyng was described as ﾓa crop entirely uncertain in its nature,
pregnant with billions and billions of spores.ﾔ The actions that led up to
Greenpeaceﾒs final direct action at Lyng were refreshed for the jury and Davies
said ﾓthe fact that Greenpeace was trying all that was possible to stop the trials
is overwhelming isnﾒt it?ﾔ.<br><br>On the issue of property that was being protected by this action, Owen Davies
explained that the environment, whilst including things that could not be
owned such as deer and wild animals, also implied the defendants had in mind
land, other crops, honey, cows, milk and even buildings. The case was not
merely about the protection of organic agriculture from GM contamination:
Malcolm Walker of Iceland had been called to show that all foodstuffs diminish
in value when GM produce was mixed with them. Davies explained that at the
time of the action, the lawful excuse may not have been known by the
defendants. Regardless of this, the concerns of the defendants on 26 July
1999 were: i) the immediate effects of GM contamination on property and the
wider environment, and ii) the long-term effects of GM contamination.<br><br>If the action on 26 July 1999 was a publicity stunt, Davies asked the jury: i)
why was it played out in a field miles away from where the media could be;
ii)whether Keith Dawson who lost work through his involvement just wanted his
name in the paper; iii) if it was just a coincidence that pollination was
imminent and that Farmers Weekly had published an article to this effect the
week before; iv) why so many measures had been taken beforehand, such as
supermarket tours and lobbying; v) where were all the photographers (why
was there only one there?); vi) where was the choreography of the action and
the fancy dress (masks, etc); vii) why were thousands spent on a Unimog?
viii) why were there so many bags, and why did they have zips? ix) where was
the sign and the symbol?<br><br>If the continuation of the action after the disablement of the Unimog was
merely ﾓtokensimﾔ, why were 28 people trained to resist provocation ﾓall
intelligent, some highly intelligentﾔ travelling great distances to take part; why
was the Executive Director involved directly, and why was Paul Bellotti doing so
on his birthday? Owen Davies asked the jury then to honestly and coolly
recreate the state of mind of the defendants during the action on 26 July 1999:
that they were protecting property which they felt was in danger, that their
actions were reasonable in all the circumstances.
Judge Mellor will sum up tomorrow morning.
