Zoe Williams does well to highlight the absurdity of Gaie Delap’s case (This 77-year-old climate activist should never have been jailed – and now faces a Kafkaesque struggle to get out, 9 January). Recalling a 78-year-old woman convicted of a non-violent, peaceful protest to prison on a technicality makes a mockery of our justice system.
Irrespective of opinions on Delap’s activism and actions and whether she should have been given a custodial sentence in the first place, it’s clear that she has been unfairly punished by an electronic tag system that is unfit for purpose, and a judicial process that is farcically failing. And this should be of significant concern to James Timpson, the prisons minister and the chair of the recently announced Women’s Justice Board – a board that will have a remit to reduce the number of people in prison and make innovative use of technological solutions in community sentencing.
