Today Nigel attended a London magistrates’ court (via Teams
videoconferencing), was found guilty of obstructing the highway, given a
conditional discharge and asked to pay court expenses of £331.
And I am proud of him.
He was arrested 07-10-2019 while sitting in the road at the
junction of Northumberland Avenue and Trafalgar Square.
It was part of an Extinction Rebellion protest.
His defence was ‘Necessity’ - by drawing attention to the
Climate Emergency and trying to get the Government to act Nigel was attempting
to save lives, both in the immediate future and throughout the years to come.
Representing himself in court, Nigel said:
‘The number of deaths as a result of the climate emergency
is going to rise, and rise dramatically. Mark Carney, former Governor of the
Bank of England, and now UN climate finance envoy, put it very simply in a
statement to the BBC on 6th February:
"When you look at climate change from a human mortality
perspective, it will be the equivalent of a coronavirus crisis every year from
the middle of this century, and every year, not just a one-off event. “
Covid is an emergency.
Currently it has caused 100,000 deaths in the UK, and 2.4m
globally. But by the middle of this
century, the climate emergency will cause that number of deaths every
year. Every year. 2.4m every year.’
However, even though thousands of people have indeed died
since Nigel sat down in the road in October 2019, of the drought, floods and
storms caused by climate change, the court did not consider the danger
immediate enough and convicted him.
We knew beforehand that this was the probable outcome, but
time will prove that it was not the right one.
Well done Nigel. Thank you for taking this action for such a great cause. I like the Defense of Necessity - I was not previously aware of it (even if it didn't work in this case)!
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