Extinction Rebellion newspaper protest: Six guilty of blocking the highway

Extinction Rebellion members (left to right) Liam Norton, James Ozden, Morgan Trowland, Eleanor Bujak, Timothy Speers, and Sally Davidson were all fined for their part in the protest

Six members of Extinction Rebellion have been found guilty of a charge of wilfully blocking the highway after protest at a printing works.

The blockade was at Newsprinters in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News UK, in September.

It stopped three-and-half-million national newspapers from being distributed across the country.

At St Albans Magistrates' Court, all had to pay costs, three were fined and three given a conditional discharge.

About 50 protestors put up tall bamboo structures outside the gates to the plant where The Sun and The Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and London Evening Standard were printed.

The group also parked two vans in front of the gates and protestors hung from the structures and clambered on to vehicles and laid down underneath them.

The defendants told the court they wanted to disrupt the distribution of the newspapers to highlight the media's failure to report the seriousness of climate change.

The six admitted taking part in the protest but denied the charge.

'Peaceful demonstration'

District Judge Sally Fudge said they did not have a "reasonable excuse" for obstructing the highway on the 4 and 5 September.

The judge said the protestors had been able to exercise their rights to protest, but it had been at the expense of the rights of others, including those who worked in the print works, who were unable to leave work.

Her sentencing remarks were briefly interrupted when the protestors began singing in the courtroom.

Protesters blocked roads to the presses in September last year

Liam Norton, 36, of Esplanade Gardens, Scarborough; Sally Davidson, 33, of Byards Croft, Streatham, south London; and James Ozden, 35, of The Avenue, London, were each given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £150 and a statutory victim surcharge of £22.

Eleanor Bujak, 28, of Bracey Street, Finsbury Park, London and Morgan Trowland, 38, Massie Road, Hackney, east London, were both fined £150 and told to pay costs of £150, plus a victim surcharge of £34.

Timothy Speers, of Rosswyld Lodge, Waltham Forest was fined £200 and ordered to pay £150 prosecution costs and a victim surcharge of £34.

Bujak was unable to attend court for the conclusion of the trial while Norton has been excluded from proceedings after he glued himself to a table in court and filmed on his phone.

Judge Fudge told the four defendants in court she noted that it had been a peaceful demonstration with no damage being caused and no abuse towards towards the police.

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