18/9/07
The prosecutor produced the judgement from the Court of Appeal in December 2006 between appellants Blum, Shaer, Evans, Rai and respondents DPP and CPS and intervener (whatever that is) the Secretary of State for the Home Department. This 12-page judgement then had to be copied five times on a photocopier that must have been miles from the courtroom, and another adjournment was given to allow the defendants time to read and respond to it. It was impossible to absorb all the legal jargon and the essence of this case in 15 minutes. The defendants argued that the points made in their submission were not covered by this judgement, but the CPS and judge Purdy decided they were - "SOCPA has been very well litigated" - and that the case against the five could go ahead. The defendants made clear their intention to take the case to appeal if necessary on these grounds. On the question of whether the case was in the public interest to prosecute, the prosecutor said that these issues had been considered "of course" (even though she'd not seen the case until 5 minutes before the trial) and that was that.
After establishing that there were the right number of defendants, the prosecutor launched into her prosecution case, starting with David King, not a good choice for her. She'd brought a police officer along to give evidence in person in David's case for some reason, but the date on David's summons was wrong, which meant his case was dismissed forthwith and she had a witness with nothing to do. As luck would have it, this police officer had also reported Genny, so after a bit of discussion he was called to the witness box, supplied with a copy of his statement "to refresh his memory" and responded to questions from the prosecution, the defendants, the prosecution again and the defendants again, which he answered as best he could, reading from his statement.
The prosecutor asked a lot of questions about the leaflets which the police had handed out to demonstrators during the weekend, managed to establish that they'd dished out hundreds but failed to establish that any of the leaflets had been given in person to any of the defendants, which proved to be important later on. Questioned by the defendants, the police witness was a bit vague about numbers taking part, and what exactly had happened during the Naming the Dead ceremony, but stated that it was a very peaceful event, that the bell which we'd been ringing was very small, and that it must have been a demonstration because some of the defendants had placards.
That took us up to about 10 past 1, so we adjourned for lunch, after which the prosecutor launched back into the rest of her case against Genny. The warning leaflet which had been bandied around before lunch had mysteriously disappeared, Genny said she hadn't received one with the prosecution evidence and when one was eventually produced from someone else's file, judge Purdy decided to take issue with its contents, the map, the designated area - everything.
Then it transpired that there was a further witness - a "high-ranking police officer" - rushing to the prosecutor's rescue on the issue of whether the demonstration had or had not been authorised, as judge Purdy was insisting that it was not enough to just say that it wasn't. The prosecutor had tried over lunch to get a fax with this information, which she hoped would be allowed as admissable evidence. Purdy said he didn't know who the fax was going to be from or whether it would be admissable.
Then there was another adjournment I think - we were losing track by this time - and the high ranking officer was on his way; the defendants made some objections to this new bit of prosecution evidence; the prosecutor suggested that she could carry on with the prosecution case and hope that her new witness would have arrived by the time she'd finished; more objections from the defendants; judge Purdy said he wasn't prepared to allow the prosecutor to spin out the case just to give time for this new witness to arrive and eventually, after more deliberation, ruled that his evidence would not be allowed. So the high ranking police officer presumably had to turn round and go home again.
So the prosecutor continued with the other cases. There was some more argument - it seemed to go on forever - about how the prosecution would show that the defendants had taken part in an unauthorised demonstration, with the prosecutor repeatedly stating that the onus was on the defendants to prove that they had authorisation, the defendants and judge Purdy arguing that it was up to the prosecution to prove that they didn't - not that any of us were necessarily going to argue this point in our defence, but the prosecutor seemed certain that we were.
She was quite upset about it all, appealing to the magistrate several times that it was unfair, that the defendants had "ambushed" her with all these new arguments, and that they should have raised all these things in the pre-trial hearing. "They've brought up all these new legal points, they've argued that they didn't know the protest was unauthorised; they've said some of them might have been part of Brian Haw's demonstration; how do I know they aren't going to bring up other arguments during their defence?" This wasn't quite accurate - all the defendants had said was that because SOCPA has no proper processes, it's impossible to know who is and isn't authorised, and who might be deemed part of an authorised demonstration or not. Anyway, judge Purdy wasn't convinced that any such "ambush" had taken place and said so.
The prosecutor limped on with the other cases, apparently failing to convince the magistrate on any of them that there was a sound prosecution case. There were more arguments over the map and whether it clearly showed the designated area. The prosecutor requested an adjournment to get her case together. The defendants all objected as this would inevitably have meant another trip to court. Purdy refused the adjournment. Eventually, she abandoned the attempt and declared her prosecution case closed. This was a bit surprising as several of the prosecution witness statements were from the FIT team who appeared to have gone to great trouble to collect photographic and video evidence, but none of this was presented in court.
It would have been on to the defence case at that point, but the remaining court time for the day was dwindling and none of the defendants fancied coming back for more. The defendants, although not well-versed in court procedure, luckily had the Activists Legal Briefing in front of them (big thanks to Activists Legal Project), so politely asked if they could make a submission of no case to answer at this point. It was hardly necessary, but we outlined our grounds and then judge Purdy ruled.
Something along the lines of "The Crown must prove that the defendants took part in a demonstration, that the demonstration was not authorised and that it was in a designated area. The Crown failed to bring evidence on these three issues. Case dismissed. No case to answer." The defendants were awarded costs and we were free to go.