Convictions
The Defend Our Juries Campaign
2023–2024
On 27 March 2023, retired social worker Trudi Warner (pictured below) stood outside Inner London Crown Court — where Insulate Britain activists were on trial — holding a sign. It read, Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience. These words were paraphrased from a historic plaque inside the Old Bailey asserting “The right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions.”
Her protest was in response to climate activists’ trials where, in some cases, defendants were told not to cite climate change or other political issues as evidence, or juries instructed to dismiss such evidence.
Warner was arrested. The Solicitor General pursued charges of Contempt of Court against her.
She had been standing on a public pavement, exercising her democratic right to peaceful protest.
The charges against Warner were eventually dismissed by Justice Saini, who said it was “fanciful to suggest that Ms Warner’s behaviour falls into the category of contempt.” But the issue behind her actions remained. Climate activists on trial continued to be barred from citing the motivations for their actions, such as climate collapse, in evidence. Campaigners argued that juries should be given the full set of facts and that it should be up to them, the defendants’ peers, to decide what was or was not relevant to the case.
So began the Defend Our Juries campaign.