Sarah Everard vigil attendees prosecuted ‘without knowing it’ despite High Court ruling police actions unlawful
Attendee tells court he ‘heard from a news report’ that he had been convicted in his absence
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Several people who attended a vigil for Sarah Everard have been prosecuted “without knowing it”, a court has heard.
The High Court found that the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the event on Clapham Common in March 2021 was unlawful, after officers wrongly threatened organisers with arrest and £10,000 fines under Covid laws.
Judges ruled that its statements “reflected a misunderstanding of the law”, and that the officers failed to understand the “reasonable excuse” provisions that meant all protests and large gatherings were not banned.
The judgment was made in March but prosecutions stemming from the vigil have continued to be processed by the Metropolitan Police and courts.
The conviction of an attendee who failed to pay a Covid fine and was prosecuted without his knowledge was thrown out on Tuesday.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that Kevin Godin-Prior, 68, has been charged with participating in a gathering of more than two people in a public outdoor place in a Tier 4 area.
He was convicted in his absence alongside two other people under the “single justice procedure” in April, where a single magistrate decides cases on the basis of written evidence, without an open court hearing or defendants and their representatives present.
Mr Godin-Prior was ordered to pay a £220 fine, £100 in court costs and a £34 victim surcharge at the same court a week later.
But appearing by video link at the same court on Tuesday, he said he had received the notice of his prosecution days after the deadline to respond.
He said he tried to contact authorities to request an extension to the notice to respond, to move the proceedings to a local court in Manchester due to his ill health and to let them know he intended to plead not guilty but received no response.
Mr Godin-Prior told the court he then “heard from a news report” that he had been convicted and was to be sentenced in June.
“I am requesting it to be reopened because I had no opportunity to respond to my case,” Mr Godin-Prior added.
Magistrate Dr Lynn Gailey quashed his conviction and recorded a not guilty plea, ahead of a trial in November.
Ben Stuttard, defending, said: “The background of this case is this is a prosecution arising out of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common.
“Several people have been prosecuted without knowing it and they have been convicted in absence.”
On the prospect of others asking for their convictions to be quashed and their case reopened, Mr Stuttard added: “I gather it's the prosecution's intention to deal with them all together.”
Data obtained by The Independent shows that around a third of Covid charges reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) since March 2020 were found to be “incorrect”.
But experts warn that the CPS figures do not represent the true scale of miscarriages of justice, because prosecutors do not review charges heard behind closed doors under the “secretive” single justice procedure.
It has seen thousands of people handed huge fines for Covid offences in their absence, without entering pleas or having legal representation.
Anyone who does not pay a Covid fine within 28 days can be charged with an offence, and the government has ignored calls from parliamentary committees to set up an appeal process that would stop innocent people having to risk prosecution to defend themselves.
Out of a total of nine fixed penalty notices issued over the Sarah Everard vigil on 13 March 2021, two were paid and one was dropped with no further action.
Mr Godin-Prior was one of six people prosecuted by the Metropolitan Police after failing to pay his fine
Jade Spence, 33, from Lambeth, was convicted at Westminster Magistrates' Court in her absence on 15 June and handed a £300 fine, £110 in costs, and a £34 victim surcharge.
Vivien Hohmann, 20, from Clapham, and Jenny Edmunds, 32, of Lewisham, south London, pleaded not guilty by post and will face trial.
They attended Clapham Common to pay their respects to Ms Everard, who had been kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer as she walked home.
Campaigners formed a group called Reclaim These Streets to hold a socially distanced vigil, but cancelled their planned event after being threatened with arrests and £10,000 by the police.
The resulting unorganised event developed into angry scenes in the late afternoon, when police were instructed to break up a crowd who had gathered around Clapham Common bandstand, and photos of female protesters being pinned to the ground sparked widespread outrage.
Additional reporting by PA