I look around me in a mixture of shock and disbelief at the bizarre setting I’m in. I realise I’m alone in the courtroom – or rather I’m not alone; there’s the magistrate at the head of the court, the prosecuting lawyers, assorted court officials and security guards. But there’s no public allowed in the public gallery, no other defendants, no observers, no court monitors nor press allowed in the court. Just me, a solitary defendant. It feels by turns intimidating, absurd and even comical.

After a very thorough body search (following a previous search after entering the main building), I had just been ushered into this courtroom. I’m directed by a security guard not into the main room of the court, but rather into a glass cage with a steel mesh ceiling: like a kind of aquarium separated by plate glass from the rest of the courtroom.

Is this kafkaesque scenario really happening? It conjures up images of trials such as that of ISIS terrorists or show trials of dissidents in Russia or mafia godfathers dragged before the law with maximum security. But it is happening. And it is at a London Magistrates Court in May 2022. 

You might wonder what dastardly or violent crimes I’m accused of to be in this setting. 

The offence I’m accused of is that of causing a ‘public nuisance’ by the simple act of sitting in the road near Liverpool St Station in the City of London, holding a banner and refusing to move, in support of Insulate Britain (IB). It was done in a spirit of completely nonviolent civil disobedience to pressure the Government to save the lives of thousands of poor people who die each winter from the cold in poorly insulated damp housing, and to reduce emissions, by undertaking a national programme of home insulation; so that hard up people don’t have to choose between heating or eating.

The magistrate discusses my case with the prosecutor and occasionally asks me to confirm details. Behind the plate glass, I can’t hear much of what they are saying and tell them that I am more than a little deaf, so can they speak up, please? This has no effect, so I leave them to it. I later learn that other defendants also couldn’t hear in the dock. 

The magistrate is not friendly and admonishes me about how I am very culpable and that this is a serious offence. My charge of ‘public nuisance’ is a vague archaic charge that shouldn’t be used for simple acts of civil disobedience. Instead, ‘obstruction of the highway’ is the usual charge. But this is clearly a politically motivated court, leaned on heavily by the Government to impose harsh penalties as a deterrent. In fact, the maximum sentence for ‘public nuisance’ is life imprisonment and an unlimited fine! I feel like I’m in a mediaeval trial accused of, say, witchcraft. And I feel about as much sympathy in the court for the context of my actions as I imagine witches might have felt in their time. 

I elect to plead guilty, which sticks in my throat a bit, since I feel my actions to be fully justified. Many other supporters of IB are electing to plead not guilty and this would lead to a longer and more expensive Crown court case the following year, but I decide I want to deal with it now by pleading guilty.

I feel nervous but also angry, frustrated, and alternately wanting to laugh at the absurd scenario where I am being criminalised and seen as a menace to society for wanting to prevent suffering and to save our life support systems on this delicate blue planet. It makes me feel kind of crazy, and I’m determined to speak out the truth.

In other court appearances, some veteran supporters of IB, exasperated by the refusal of magistrates to engage at all with the desperate reasons they are driven to civil resistance, have started to refuse to cooperate with the courts by not turning up or disrupting proceedings. A number have been remanded and imprisoned and yet still they continue. While I have admired their courage, after having this experience in court myself, I now have a much deeper emotional understanding as to why they feel compelled to defy the sham of the courts which completely refuse to engage with the deeper context for these actions.

The extreme set up in my hearing was clearly partly in response to previous actions in the courts by supporters of IB, yet it is also something more. The atmosphere in court today is a far cry from the XR days of 2019 when I was in court for sitting in the road. Back then the court usher would give us the thumbs up and the magistrate was friendly and expressed respect for why we were acting, followed by giving us the smallest fine possible.

The magistrate asks if I have anything to say before sentencing and I have a short speech prepared. But rather than read it out, I decide on the spot to just speak out while looking directly at the magistrate. 

(my speech is below – or more or less what I said)  

 After I finish, the magistrate says that I am clearly conscientious and he adds something to the effect that I believe in my cause. It’s hard to hear the exact words (through the plate glass) – and he doesn’t say this – but to me it has the flavour of that I’m deluded (perhaps sincerely deluded). Apparently that all that matters is that I broke the law, and he emphasises that it’s serious and that I caused huge disruption to public transport and to the public. (never mind that most days there is not dissimilar disruption caused by the sheer volume of traffic on London’s roads). From my perspective it’s an interchange along the lines of being charged with breaking the window of a house to save someone trapped in a fire inside, but the only relevant fact and crime is that you broke the window. The attitude is that it’s your ‘belief’, your ‘cause’, rather than we’re simply acting on the proven facts of the science and the calls of the UN and other international bodies and it’s an emergency.

The magistrate considers giving me a community order punishment but reconsiders due to my age. Instead he gives me a rather draconian fine of £500 plus costs and victim surcharge (whatever that means?), adding up to a tidy £635. I’m ushered out of the court.

And that’s what justice looks like today for climate protectors in England in 2022.

My Court Statement

“I’m sorry for any disruption caused to members of the public. I sat on a road to highlight the government’s shameful and dangerous inaction in undertaking any meaningful national programme of home insulation.  I felt compelled by my conscience to act in nonviolent civil disobedience. 

I really don’t like sitting on the road and being arrested. As a 70 year old retired charity worker, I would much prefer to be pottering on my allotment growing vegetables and assisting with nature conservation. 

Having exhausted all the traditional and now largely ineffectual avenues of petitions, marches, campaigns, writing to MPs and so forth, in desperation I felt it my duty to step up and engage in civil disobedience, since the government is breaking its social contract with the people. 

As someone who feels themselves to be a citizen who has responsibilities rather than just a consumer, there is a moral imperative to act. For a long time I’ve diligently made all the personal lifestyle choices to reduce my environmental footprint: I gave up owning a car 30 years ago, pledged not to take any flights years ago, and have eschewed all animal products for 50 years, etc, etc.  Yet it’s all a drop in the ocean compared to the system change that is vitally needed and can only come from Government action.

Because the government refuses to implement a national programme of insulating homes, the result is that hundreds of thousands of families are forced to choose between heating or eating. Thousands are even dying of the cold every winter and the current fuel crisis is making this predicament ever more dire.  

To explain my action with Insulate Britain, I would like to briefly tell the Court why the subject of insulating homes is very real and personal for me:

My wife and I live in a small flat in East London; a relatively new build flat from 2013. It was properly insulated during construction, and as a consequence, in all the years we have lived there since new, we have never once had to turn on the heating or spend a single penny on heating for the last 7-8 years. And it is always warm, never below 20C in winter; body heat and cooking heats the flat and there is virtually no heat loss. Yet this is very far from being a fancy flat – the block is half social housing, half owner occupied. 

I’m saying all this because I know what is so easily possible and how proper insulation could prevent so many families suffering from cold and ill health in damp, draughty homes.

Construction codes for residential buildings were moving towards a zero carbon standard by 2016, and then in 2015 the government removed the zero carbon standard. You may recall the PM back then, David Cameron, famously being quoted as saying to aides to “get rid of the green crap” (his words, not mine). As a result, building developers since then are happily building cheaper, much leakier buildings. And the poor continue to suffer. 

If insulation was being installed at the rate seen in 2012, analysis has found that up to nine million extra homes would have been upgraded by now. 

And of course insulating homes is one of the speediest and most effective ways to both reduce emissions (a massive 15% of our total emissions), reduce fuel bills – especially in our terrible fuel crisis – and create meaningful jobs installing insulation in social housing first, and then in all homes.

I don’t want to bequeath the younger generations with the terrible and unlivable environment which will result from our current trajectory of criminally inadequate action to stop the climate chaos and ecological catastrophe.

 I accept the consequences of my actions. I sat on a road and am therefore deemed to be guilty of a crime. Peaceful nonviolent citizens are being criminalised of late with draconian punishments for having the integrity to act on behalf of us all.

Meanwhile, the Government has received an estimated £18M from property developers in donations since Mr Johnson became prime minister.  I can only question who are the real criminals here?”