The decision to prosecute an 80-year-old retired vicar from Bristol who blocked the main entrance to the MOD in Filton at an Extinction Rebellion protest has been overturned, after a judge found she was exercising her freedom of expression rights.
Reverend Sue Parfitt, who strapped herself to a blockade outside the MOD in December 2020 for more than four hours before she was arrested, had been ordered to pay £1,500 last June after a judge at Bristol Magistrates Court found her guilty of obstruction.
But after she appealed the decision the case was taken to Bristol Crown Court. Today (Thursday, March 24) Recorder Robin Sellers said Rev Parfitt's obstruction of the entrance to the Abbeywood site was a "reasonable use of the highway."
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He made the decision after hearing evidence from David Rhodes, speaking on behalf of Rev Parfitt, and Ed Counsell, who gave prosecuting evidence. Recorder Sellers said the prosecution had "not satisfied" him and appealed the decision quoting Article 10 of the Human Rights Act. It prompted a cheer from around ten climate activists who came to support the retired vicar.
Rev Parfitt, a former couples therapist, gave evidence to the judge detailing her long-running involvement in climate protesting. She told the court she took "outrageous action to highlight the outrageous inaction of the government" in addressing the climate crisis when she refused to move from the site and got arrested.
Quoting David King, head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, Rev Parfitt warned: "[We are] between three and four years away from passing irreversible tipping points... I don't have children, but those born now will have no future unless we can turn this crisis around."
Rev Parfitt gave her evidence in court to Recorder Sellers and one other magistrate, after the court heard how a second magistrate due to sit in on the case was told to stand down because he is a health and safety compliance manager at the MOD.
Rev Parfitt apologised that the protest in December 2020 had caused "some disruption" but argued that MOD workers could have used the car park for Abbeywood Retail Park and walked to their workplace from there. She said pedestrians and cyclists were being let in throughout the protest as well as blue badge holders and emergency vehicles. "I apologise to [MOD workers]," she said. "I don't want to disrupt their day however it's trying to get across to everybody the gravity of the situation we're facing."
She said Extinction Rebellion had chosen to protest outside the MOD on that day because it was the night before the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change. It was also just after the Government had announced a £24 billion funding boost for the Ministry of Defence - twice that it was allocating to be spent tackling the climate crisis.
Ed Counsell, prosecuting, said: "There is very little in this case which is factually in dispute on either side," before reading statements from police officers who made arrests at the scene. He questioned Rev Parfitt as to whether she would have moved had she not been arrested, and stressed that protesters had blocked all three entrances into the MOD site, leaving workers with few options to get in. He told the court that seven trucks wanting to enter the site were either turned away or drove off, with one coming back later in the day once protesters had dispersed.
Meanwhile David Rhodes questioned whether the arrest, prosecution and conviction of Rev Parfitt was necessary, given that she was not restricting the rights of the general public. He claimed she had a lawful excuse to protest following a Supreme Court ruling that said blocking a road leading to an arms fair was legal. "There has to be a degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings," he added.
Recorder Sellers ruled in Rev Parfitt's favour. He said: "In this case, limited to its own facts, we find that Rev Parfitt was exercising her Article 10 right of freedom of expression and this must be balanced against the level of disruption that is established on the evidence."
Speaking after the appeal decision was made, Rev Parfitt said: ‘"I feel very pleased about today as I think my guilty verdict in June was not right. Those of us who are resisting climate meltdown are not the criminals. As Antonio Guterres said last month, it is the failure of climate leadership that is criminal."
She says she plans to continue her activism with Just Stop Oil, a 'coalition of groups' working together to demand the government stop the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal in the UK.
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