trials

Back in July, if you remember, fifty Greenpeace polar bears occupied Cairn Energy's Edinburgh headquarters, looking for the company's Arctic oil spill response plan and taking your messages to the heart of the company. (I'd post pictures to jog your memory but I'm afraid we're still gagged by Cairn's interdict.)

In this special edition of our podcast, we take a behind the scenes look at the extraordinary events that have already gone down in legend here at the Greenpeace office. This month, six Greenpeace activists were acquitted of causing criminal damage to Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, because they were acting to prevent greater damage caused by climate change. The verdict has been hailed by some of the world's more hysterical media pundits as the official start of a state of anarchy in the UK.

I spent ten days with the defendants, finding out what was really happening, and how they were coping with the emotion, stress and drama of being at the centre of it all.

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Want to know more about the issues in this podcast?

The Kingsnorth trial »
Meet the defendants »
Witness statements in full »
The case against coal »
Closing the energy gap »
The real solution »

Zak Goldsmith outside Maidstone Crown Court © Greenpeace/Jiri Rezak

As promised, here are the full written statements from the defence witnesses at the Kingsnorth trial:

• Professor Jim Hansen (pdf)
• Dr Geoff Meaden (pdf) plus a supplementary statement (pdf)
• Zak Goldsmith (pdf)
• Aqqaluk Lynge (pdf)
• Jennifer Morgan (pdf)

Obviously, these don't include verbal answers the witnesses gave while they were on the stand - check out the daily blogs from the trial for some of those.

Hats off to the Kingsnorth Six for having the courage to risk prison to hold the government's misguided energy policy to account. The fact that Gordon Brown and co are planning to ramp up Britain's consumption of coal (the most climate damaging fossil fuel) had gone largely unnoticed by our mainstream media until yesterday's successful trial result. Not any more!

See all trial updates.

It's been a pretty unusual ten days but today has been truly extraordinary. At 3.20pm, the jury came back into court and announced a majority verdict of not guilty! All six defendants - Kevin, Emily, Tim, Will, Ben and Huw - were acquitted of criminal damage.

To recap on how important this verdict is: the defendants campaigners were accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had 'lawful excuse' - because they were acting to protect property around the world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.

See all trial updates or sign up to get them by email.

A relatively short blog today (I thought you deserved it after yesterday's dissertation).

The judge finished summing up before lunch and, at 12.50pm, the jury retired to consider the verdict. By the end of the day, after a fair bit of pacing and nail biting in the defendants' camp, the jury said they hadn't yet been able to reach a unanimous verdict. So the trial - and the slightly frayed nerves - continue into Wednesday. 

The Kingsnorth Six outside Maidstone Crown Court © Rezac/Greenpeace

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Things are getting really interesting; the end of the trial is probably close (it looks as though the jury will be sent out to decide their verdict at 11.30 on Tuesday), we've seen the summing up from both the defence and the prosecution, there's been laughter and a few tears and, again, I'm going to struggle to get all my notes into a blog-sized piece.

First up was a statement (originally due on Friday) from Aqqaluk Lynge, an Inuit leader personally responsible for addressing damage to property in Greenland as a result of climate change. There's a lot of it for him to address:

See all trial updates or sign up to get them by email.

We were expecting to hear evidence from Inuit leader Aqqaluk Lynge today but, because a juror fell ill, that's been postponed until Monday. Instead, the court held a legal discussion, none of which I can write about.

We're tentatively expecting a verdict early next week but, of course, nobody really knows. At the moment though, we're on the train back to London; the defendants are tired but in good spirits, and looking forward to a short window of normality before the case resumes next week. More on Monday.