Ministers suffered a blow to their energy plans today as six Greenpeace volunteers were acquitted of criminal damage by a Crown Court jury in a case that centred on the contribution made to climate change by burning coal.
The charges arose after the six attempted to shut down the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent last year by scaling the chimney and painting the Prime Minister's name down the side. The defendants pleaded ‘not guilty' and relied in court on the defence of ‘lawful excuse' - claiming they shut the power station in order to defend property of a greater value from the global impact of climate change.
Today's acquittal is a potent challenge to the Government's plans for new coal-fired power stations from jurors representing ordinary people in Britain who, after hearing the evidence, supported the right to take direct action in order to protect the climate.
Over five days of evidence Maidstone Crown Court heard testimony from the world's leading climate scientist, an Inuit leader from Greenland and David Cameron's environment adviser. The jury was told that Kingsnorth emits 20,000 tonnes of CO2 every day - the same amount as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined - and that the Government has advanced plans to build a new coal-fired power station next to the existing site on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent.
The ‘not guilty' verdict means the jury believed that shutting down the coal plant was justified in the context of the damage to property caused around the world by CO2 emissions from Kingsnorth.
One of the Kingsnorth 6, Emily Hall, said after her acquittal:
"This is a huge blow for the Government's plans to build new coal-fired power stations. It's coal that should have been on trial, not us. After this verdict, the only people left in Britain who think new coal is a good idea are business secretary John Hutton and the energy minister Malcolm Wicks. It's time the Prime Minister stepped in, showed some leadership, and embraced a clean energy future for Britain."
Another of the defendants, Ben Stewart, added:
"This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change movement. If jurors from the heart of Middle England say it's legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave government energy policy? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy, it's time we turned to them instead of coal."
