Attorney General drops appeal bid over protester who held sign outside court

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The Attorney General has dropped a bid to challenge a judge’s ruling stopping them from taking legal action against a protester who held up a sign outside court.

Trudi Warner was arrested outside Inner London Crown Court in March last year for holding the sign outside an entrance used by jurors before a trial involving members of the climate group, Insulate Britain.

The sign read: “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.”

In May, the then-Solicitor General, Robert Courts, asked for the go-ahead to appeal against Mr Justice Saini’s ruling in April that he could not proceed with High Court legal action against Ms Warner for contempt of court.

But on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) confirmed that law officers had dropped the appeal bid.

In a statement issued by the Good Law Project following the decision, Ms Warner said: “The challenges ahead will be making everyone aware of the right of jurors to acquit now that it’s absolutely unequivocal.

“It’s going to be so important in our barely functioning democracy where people are unequal under the law.

“This principle may already have proved influential in courts where environmental defenders have been on trial, but it is also proving a threat to judges who are partisan and punitive, and appear to be unaccountable.

“I’m so grateful that the collective efforts of Defend Our Juries, Good Law Project, and Hodge Jones And Allen have influenced this wonderful outcome for myself.

“However, there is much work still to do to empower jurors and address the appalling inequities in our legal system, which is treating young people, in particular, so harshly.

“Some are in prison for years and I really hope that our collective efforts can support them as effectively as the support I have received. I’m so grateful.”

Ms Warner was arrested after being seen on CCTV outside Inner London Crown Court for around 30 minutes with the sign on the morning of March 27 2022, the first day of the trial involving climate protesters, but she did not speak to any members of the public.

Later that day outside the same court, she joined a protest over how the judge in the trial, Judge Silas Reid, had overseen previous cases involving Insulate Britain members after he instructed jurors to set aside views they had on climate change when deciding cases.

The AGO announced that it would take legal action against Ms Warner last September, with lawyers for the Solicitor General telling a hearing in April that she had committed contempt of court by “deliberately targeting” jurors with the sign.

Barristers for Ms Warner, a retired social worker from Walthamstow, east London, argued that she was acting as a “human billboard” to advertise a “vital constitutional, if occasionally used, safeguard against unjust prosecutions”, and that prosecuting her was not in the public interest.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Saini dismissed the Solicitor General’s claims, stating that Ms Warner’s conduct did not amount to an “actionable contempt” and that a criminal prosecution “is a disproportionate approach to this situation in a democratic society”.

Raj Chada, from Hodge Jones & Allen, who represents Ms Warner said: “Bearing in mind that the High Court had already said that the prosecution of our client was ‘fanciful’ , abandoning this appeal is sensible and welcome, albeit overdue.”

Following the dropping of the appeal bid, Jennine Walker, legal manager at the Good Law Project, said it was “fantastic news” that the “callous and absurd targeting of Trudi Warner” had been dropped.

She added: “Trudi can now finally move on from the Kafkaesque nightmare that’s been imposed upon her for the last year and a half.

“People peacefully protesting and standing up for our planet in the midst of a climate emergency are still being dragged through the courts, while punitive policies put in place by the last government are still in force.

“We’re hoping to see the new Labour administration now take a more rational approach which defends the right to protest.”