A Gateshead grandmother has been to the dentist, had her haircut and told her grandchildren she might be going away for a while..
That might seem unremarkable, but for Helen Redfern, 58, it's part of preparing for what had previously seemed unthinkable: the chance that later this week she could be bedding down in a prison cell.
Helen was convicted in February of causing a public nuisance, along with three others, during Insulate Britain protests in London in October 2021. Helen, a longstanding environmentalist from Lobley Hill, who runs the Green Heart Collective in Team Valley, had never previously broken the law, but conscious of the rapidly escalating climate emergency, she glued her hands to the road in the heart of London's Bishopsgate during the rush hour on October 25 that year.
