Kingsnorth protest: Activists to use climate change as defence for £30,000 tower damage

· Stunt was attempt to stop loss of lives, accused to say · Greenpeace will call academics as witnesses
John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian,
Tuesday September 2 2008

Greenpeace climate change activists who scaled one of Britain's tallest power station chimneys, causing £30,000 damage, were accused in court yesterday of crossing the line of acceptable protest.
Five activists, with food and water to stay four days, climbed the 200-metre chimney at Kingsnorth coal-fired power station near Hoo, Kent, last October. They had planned to daub "Gordon, bin it" on the outside of the chimney, but only got as far as painting the name "Gordon" before they came down after 30 hours, a jury at Maidstone crown court heard yesterday.
Huw Williams, 41, from Nottingham; Ben Stewart, 34, from Lyminge, Kent; Kevin Drake, 44, from Westbury, Wiltshire; Will Rose, 29, from London; and Emily Hall, 34, from New Zealand are all charged with criminal damage to the chimney. Tim Hewke, 48, from Ulcombe, Kent, who the prosecution says helped organise the protest from the ground, is also charged with criminal damage. None of them deny causing the damage and they also accept the estimated costs of repairing the damage.
The legality of causing the damage in the first place would be the central issue of the case, said John Price, prosecuting. "These defendants maintain that they had a lawful excuse for damaging the chimney for the protection of other property. Other property, you will hear, in Kent and all around the world. Property said to be at the risk of more serious damage threatened by climate change which is caused by the substantial increase in greenhouse gases of which it is said coal-burning power stations make a large contribution."
But he said the acts committed by the protesters were "not capable of being lawful". He told the jury of nine men and three women that the case was not a prosecution of free speech or legitimate political protest but a prosecution for crossing the line of acceptable protest.
"There are things you can lawfully do in making a protest, but there's a line which has to be drawn," he said.
The activists, who begin their defence today, are expected to argue that they acted to prevent lives being lost and damage being done to properties around the world by global warming. It will be the first time that such a climate change defence has been used in a British court.
The environment group is expected to call leading international climate change academics, researchers and environmentalists as witnesses.
Greenpeace was in a similar situation in 1999 when Lord Melchett, its director at the time, along with others destroyed a field of GM crops in Norfolk. They said in court they were acting to prevent wider environmental damage. The not guilty verdict sent a message to environmental activists that they would not necessarily be punished under the law if they caused damage to property.
The case, which is expected to run a further five days, has extra significance because of public opposition to Kingsnorth power station, and many people have pledged to disobey the law if a coal-fired station is built. More than 2,500 people demonstrated against it last month.
Gordon Brown is expected to give approval to Kingsnorth in the next few months, making it the first new coal-fired station for 30 years. The case continues.