London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Don’t put climate activists on trial, CPS urged

Don’t put climate activists on trial, CPS urged

Questions raised over purpose of prosecuting peaceful protesters after activists are found guilty of calling climate-change sceptics ‘liars’
Prosecutors are under growing pressure to drop cases against environmental protesters after activists were found guilty of calling the UK’s most prominent climate-change sceptics “liars”.

Three campaigners were found guilty of criminal damage after spraying graffiti on the Westminster office of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The organisation, which was once chaired by the former chancellor Nigel Lawson, has been criticised by the Charity Commission for breaking rules on impartiality, with critics accusing it of being the UK’s most prominent source of climate-change scepticism.

Campaigners, who sprayed the words “lies, lies, lies” on to the building, received the minimal permissible sentence for criminal damage, a six-month conditional discharge, and were told to pay a reduced court cost of £100. Raj Chada, a solicitor at Hodge Jones & Allen, said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ought to reevaluate pursuing such cases.

Around 50 Extinction Rebellion activists have had their convictions quashed after peaceful protests, raising questions for the CPS over cases brought against them. “Surely, yet again, the CPS needs to consider whether it is in the public interest to prosecute when these are the sentences imposed,” Chada said.

Clare Farrell, Jessica Townsend and Rupert Read sprayed the graffiti and poured fake blood down the steps of the building in September 2020. The address is home to a small but influential network of libertarian, pro-Brexit thinktanks and lobby groups. Among those who attend frequent meetings at the Georgian townhouse are pro-Brexit website Brexit Central, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which has been accused of offering donors access to government ministers and civil servants.

Delivering the verdict last Thursday, three magistrates at City of London Magistrates court praised the activists for their “openness and honesty”.

Townsend said: “We feel it is an obscenity … that there are those propagating lies that will damage and put at risk the future of our society and our children.”

Townsend, an author who co-founded Writers Rebel, a group of writers within Extinction Rebellion including Mark Rylance, Zadie Smith and Juliet Stevenson, added: “Writers, journalists and all who deal with words need to counter these lies, false narratives and deliberate confusions with the clarity of the truth.”

Actress and author Harriet Walter, who was at the court in support, said: “The wrong crime was on trial. Which is the greater crime? Reversible damage to a bit of property or landing our children and grandchildren with irreversible damage to the planet?”Jonathan Porritt, former chair of Tony Blair’s Sustainable Development Commission, added: “This is a disappointing outcome … It doesn’t make the Global Policy Warming Foundation any less of a bunch of chronic liars.”

A spokesperson for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, rebranded online as the Net Zero Watch, said they were campaigning against “exaggerated” claims that were not based in science. They added that they should be called climate change sceptics, not deniers.

The spokesperson added: “No scientist in their right mind claims we’re facing extinction or we only have 10 years to prevent global catastrophe... These are exaggerated claims that Extinction Rebellion use to scare people. But, you know, we might face significant warming and significant problems. But it’s not the end of the world, is it?”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×