An anti-vaxxer had 'no right' to cause £11k worth of damage to coronavirus jab centres, a judge has ruled.
Paul Leonard Edwards, of Warrington, failed to convince a jury at Mold Crown Court he was justified to carry out criminal damage last year at two separate Covid vaccination sites in North Wales. A separate matter of common assault was discharged from the record after the jury couldn't reach a verdict.
Edwards, who chose to represent himself after telling the court he no longer trusted his solicitor, attacked two sites in the region offering Covid-19 vaccinations. The court heard how he caused over £11,000 in damages during both incidents, DailyPost reports.
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Prosecutor, Anna Price, said despite his best efforts, Edwards caused limited disruption to the vaccination rollout in December 2021. He caused less than £1,000 in damages at the Llandudno vaccine centre using rocks he had taken from the nearby beachfront.
His actions did have an impact on some other smaller businesses at the St Asaph OpTIC centre, where around 25 windows were smashed and needed repairing. However, Ms Price confirmed only one of those windows was in the actual vaccination centre itself.
Edwards, who believes that Communist China has a vested interest in destabilising Western society, made efforts to downgrade his sentence. However, his appeals fell flat when Judge Rhys Rowlands said nothing short of prison can be justified for his actions last year when healthcare workers were trying to ensure that the most vulnerable in society had access to the vaccine - hailed as a "lifeline" back to normality.
He said: "I don't doubt that you held, and clearly still do hold, genuine and strong views that were critical of official policies and the laws in place by all four home Governments to protect the general population from the effects of the pandemic. You are, of course, entitled to hold what are sometimes termed anti-vaxx views.
"What you cannot do is to deliberately go out and break the law in order to impose your views on others. In this case, to try and prevent other people - many of whom were likely to be elderly or otherwise vulnerable - from getting their injections.
"I have no doubt that those people would have been anxious and would have seen those injection appointments as a lifeline, enabling them to achieve a degree of normality in their lives. For you to try and prevent them was not just misguided but, dare I say, arrogant."
The judge went on to say that Edwards' "entirely unwarranted behaviour" in not allowing other people to reach their own decisions about the benefits of vaccination was "serious" and therefore must carry "serious consequences". Overall, he passed a prison sentence of 21 months for the two criminal damage charges.
After the sentencing, a joint statement was issued by the health board from chairman Mark Polin and chief executive Jo Whitehead saying said: “The actions of this individual caused a great deal of worry to our staff and could have seriously delayed a life-saving vaccine for many people. The steadfast and dedicated work of our vaccination teams meant were we able to continue with the programme of vaccinations, despite these senseless acts.
"We pay tribute to them for everything they did then, throughout the peaks of the pandemic and continue to do now. We thank North Wales Police for its prompt response on two occasions and helping to prevent any further disruption to our vaccination programme.
“We would also like to thank security staff and our hosts in both centres for helping us to carry on doing this vital work. Finally we would reiterate attacks on our staff, our premises or our partners, are wholly unacceptable and we will always seek the full protection of the law when such incidents occur.”
