the brilliantly leaping gazelle

The main problem with jury trials is the juries themselves. The idea of a trial at which evidence is presented before a jury, and then that assemblage of persons then decide on whether guilt has been proven to have been committed is a great one. I’m not suggesting it’s not. But the acquittal last week of six Palestine Action activists on charges of aggravated burglary after a break-in at the UK headquarters of an Israeli-owned arms company proves just how pleas to the emotion of a jury can thwart justice.

The six were found not guilty over allegations that they had used or threatened unlawful violence. This despite five of them telling jurors they had entered the factory without permission and damaged Elbit’s equipment, including computers and drones. Using sledgehammers they’d brought with them for that very purpose and not, as their defence claimed, to threaten or use on staff. I wish I was making this all up. But thats what the defence went with. Unfortunately body-camera footage from one of the security guards on duty showed three of the defendants approaching the officer and shouting “fuck off” at him. One of whom wields a lighted flare whilst the other two brandish sledgehammers. 

Things got worse when the police arrived, as the protesters knew they would. Again, body-camera footage shown to the court told it’s own story. One defendant is seen raising her sledgehammer over her head and bringing it down towards one of the security guards. She was tasered by police before any injury could be inflicted. A police officer, Sgt Evans was not so lucky. More footage shows another of the defendant hitting in the back with a sledgehammer – twice. It was only the fact that she was wearing a stab vest, which absorbed some of the force of the blows, that prevented a life-altering injury. As it was, she suffered a fractured spine, was off sick for three moths, and when she returned to work was  confined to restricted duties because of the ongoing health issues.

Therefore one might be forgiven that a ‘guilty’ verdict was a certainty. The six admitted trespass, admitted criminal damage and body-camera footage provided irrefutable evidence of bodily harm. Incredible as it seems then, the jury were unable to reach a verdict on criminal damage by the six. Neither were they were similarly able to apportion guilt to the three charged with violent disorder or to the one charged with GBH on Sgt Evans. 

It is beyond ironic therefore, that Avon and Somerset police  issued a statement expressing their deep concern about the failure of the jury to deliver a guilty verdict on the protester who assaulted Sgt.Evans. Because to my mind, no other institution than the police has done more to embolden protesters belief that what they do isn’t so much criminal as cosplay. As such, they have rarely faced the heavy-handed approach police took to protests in the of old. And this isn’t some evidence free conjecture on my part. A report in 2021 by HM Inspector of Constabulary made much the same point. Had little practical effect though. Protesters had occupied five Londons bridges in 2018. Chaos ensued. The police made pathetically ineffectual efforts to disperse them. One might think that a highly critical report from basically their own a couple of years later might have caused tactics to change. No. When protesters carried out the same protest on the same five bridges in 2022 the response was similarly lacklustre. This link to a story about this also has a photo of three police officers standing idly by, enjoying the sun, as London slowly inched along.

Remember the Black Lives Matter protests that swept though Britain after the death of George Floyd?  They went right ahead. Some police there to police the protests even took the knee. These protests took place against a backdrop of COVID restrictions and a slew of heavy handed enforcing of them. Think of the vigil for Sarah Everard which took place at about the same time. No such indulgence there. Or the woman fined £10,000 after organising a gathering after her brother-in-laws funeral, or the worshippers at a Good Friday church service who were threatened with arrest for flouting social distancing rules No, they were far more of a concern than mass gatherings all over the country. 

Before that we had Occupy. Remember them? How charmingly 2012 it all seems now. Simply by sitting down on the pavement and putting up a few tents, they thought they could change global capitalism. To me, this is point at which police stared to choose not only when to enforce the law – and when not to – but also to against whom and which laws they applied. Quite how and why this was so is better discussed by those more qualified to do so, but the result was that there was no immediate police response. There were no mass arrests. There was no visible action taken by anyone, apart by others who joined in the protests once they realised they only risked having an entertaining dinner party anecdote.  

The inevitable and wholly predictable consequence of this is the creation of an entitled mindset, whereby protesters actions began being justified by themselves as being part of some greater moral imperative. Of years wherein this performative nonsense has been lauded over by sections of the media, rationalised by politicians and fawned over by ‘celebrities’. The resulting moral quicksand that this has created in our society means that a jury made up of members of this society will therefore believe that certain actions are permissible if done for the right reasons. This is what allowed the farce at Woolwich to happen. Possibly the jury imagined themselves as part of the protest. Perhaps not all of them yet, but enough of them to undermine trial by jury far more than our Home Secretary, Smokey Dave.

This is a cause for concern. Firstly, If one can break the law with impunity by calculating that a good enough excuse will get one off scot free, then the notion of equality before the law begins to collapse. And following on from that is the absolute certainty that social mores will change, so that quite possibly that what was once thought of as noble and principled soon becomes nasty and problematic. 

Additionally, and I accept that this is a flight of fancy, but what would be too much of a crime to be excused away? At what point does common sense return to the application of common law?