Drax, darlings!

The Drax trial reaches its exciting conclusion!! If you've just zoned in, fifteen eco-warriors, five eco-clerics and two eco-mages are on trial for criminal damage. They hijacked a train!! The indians to George W.'s cowboy!!

"Although Judge Spencer repeated many previous warnings that such wider evidence was inadmissible, he did not stop Gannon from describing at length a book about dinosaurs and climate change, nor her conclusion that "burning coal means carbon pollution which means death.""

Not just cowboys but dinosaurs!! Could the book have been the zplendid Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up?

Though it's tootingly irrelevant to today's case, I do hope for the sake of English law that a juridical form does exist for what is plainly a good thing to have done. Perhaps, since it's THE WORLD at stake, the right to self-defense, or perhaps they had "lawful excuse". Cf. Section 5 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971, defining lawful excuse:

"[...] (b) if he destroyed or damaged or threatened to destroy or damage the property in question or, in the case of a charge of an offence under section 3 above, intended to use or cause or permit the use of something to destroy or damage it, in order to protect property belonging to himself or another or a right or interest in property which was or which he believed to be vested in himself or another, and at the time of the act or acts alleged to constitute the offence he believed—
(i) that the property, right or interest was in immediate need of protection; and
(ii) that the means of protection adopted or proposed to be adopted were or would be reasonable having regard to all the circumstances."

Though cf. R v. Hill and Hall (1989) 89 Cr. App. Rep. 74; "immediate need" could be a crux.

Will the crunchies succeed in describing to the twelve good sooty Northerners and true what civil disobedience is, and convince them it's a good idea? They'll have the judge blathering in their ear that their job is only to determine concrete circumstances which everyone agreed about three days ago, and that magic is true.

The prosecution is using Section 36 of The Malicious Damage Act so they don't even have to prove mens rea!

I'll bet some zcrew brings them zwine flu too!

UPDATE: They did in fact use Defence of Necessity! That puts them in the same boat as the cabin-boy cannibal convicts!

UPDATE: They were found guilty!!! A jury of slaves! Jonathan Stevenson is gorgeous! I am in love! Jonathan Stevenson, I find you guilty . . . of stealing my heart!