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Ok I am very much not tweeting the whole Stansted 15 judgment.
But a few gems to highlight just how deranged it is that protesters were charged with a terrorist offence, and how important it is that we never allow the suppression of protest to go this far again.
But a few gems to highlight just how deranged it is that protesters were charged with a terrorist offence, and how important it is that we never allow the suppression of protest to go this far again.
In order to prove the #Stansted15 likely endangered the safe operation of the airport the CPS had to reach for possibility that someone might slip and fall chasing them.
The only time anyone could find this offence having been charged before was when a man took to the skies in a helicopter and flew it directly at the building containing the people keeping all the other planes in the sky, and not for example embedded in the ground or each other.
This is an offence that was created because an international agreement called the Montreal Protocol was agreed to help create a universal, consistent approach to terrorism.
It is not. And I really can't emphasise this enough. It is not for when a group of people strap themselves to bits of a plane that has its engines turned off because it will delay the Home Office and some horrible privatised charter company in ruining a bunch of people's lives.
And in a very clear judgment the famously woke liberal snowflake the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Burnett of Maldon (I think after the salt?), has said as much.
Anyway. This is really important. Not just for anti-deportation campaigners, but also climate change activists. Of course doing this sort of thing is still a criminal offence, but it is so obviously not terrorism, and it's extremely scary that these convictions happened at all.
Read the judgment here. https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-v-thacker-and-ors/
PS. Of course if you do strap yourself to a plane in a way that is realistically likely to endanger the operation of an airport you might get done for this, so don't.
And in general strapping yourself to planes and breaking into airports is likely to ruin your year.
And in general strapping yourself to planes and breaking into airports is likely to ruin your year.
