Charges against two lockdown protestors have been dropped because pursuing them is “not in the public interest” – but the protestors may insist on going to court anyway so that the whole Covid lockdown debacle can be properly reviewed in a court of law.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided to discontinue its prosecution of two prominent Stroud activists, Marcus Blackett and Richard House, for allegedly breaking the Tier 4 lockdown regulations that were in force on January 9th 2021. The charge was that of “Participating in a gathering of more than two people in a public outdoor place in a Tier 4 area”. According to the CPS’s ‘Notice of Discontinuance’ dated February 14th 2023, this decision has been taken because “a prosecution is not needed in the public interest”. Marcus and Richard have the option of the case not being dropped, and are considering whether to go to court anyway so the important civil liberties issues surrounding their case fully aired in the public sphere.
In late 2020, the Stroud freedom group decided that something needed to be done locally for the sake of residents’ mental health, given the extreme coronavirus regulations. The U.K. Office for National Statistics was reporting a near doubling of rates of depression since the pandemic began.
In response to this crisis, half a dozen members of the group decided to start walking around Stroud wearing ‘Citizens’ Conversation’ sandwich-boards, inviting members of the public passing by to have a chat with them. Such excursions were made on a regular basis around Stroud town centre starting in November 2020. Marcus and Richard wished to offer their expertise to the people of their town – those who wished to engage with them – who were struggling mentally under the weight of the soul-crushing restrictions. They also wanted to protest against the imposition of the Covid regulations and to highlight that the ‘cure’ was worse than the disease.
On Saturday January 9th 2021, three group members were walking around Stroud town wearing ‘Citizens’ Conversation’ boards. Marcus and Richard were arrested near the High Street by an aggressive police officer “for breaking Coronavirus regulations” by holding an alleged “gathering”. When they were arrested, Richard was talking with a healthcare worker who was clearly upset at what was happening under lockdown and desperately needed someone to talk to.
Marcus and Richard were taken into custody and told they would receive a Fixed Penalty Notice and later a Summary Justice Procedure Notice. They decided to take a stand and challenged the notices. Following months of correspondence with the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, they discovered, having not been notified of any trial date, that they had been convicted of the offence in absentia and saddled with criminal records and considerable fines.
Marcus and Richard then engaged the London solicitors Murray Hughman, who in October 2022 successfully applied for a re-trial, persuading the court to set aside the original convictions and fines and to reopen the case with a fresh trial ordered. In so doing, the court commented that the important and novel issues raised with regards to the interference with human rights might well be worthy of examination by the U.K. Supreme Court. Before the new trial took place, however, the CPS decided to drop the case, as described above.
The core concern with this case was the attack on civil liberties and common-law rights that this arrest exemplified, and Marcus and Richard hoped the court would draw a clear line in the sand so that in future the police would not be able to overreach their powers and encroach any further into what are increasingly fragile civil liberties.
Andrew Rootsey, criminal defence lawyer at Murray Hughman, said:
The frequently shifting sands of the Coronavirus regulations created substantial confusion, and saddled many well-intentioned citizens with criminal records and punitive fines. The legislation was rushed through Parliament, poorly drafted and ill-thought out. The regulations that were in place in January 2021 were completely inaccessible and opaque, and many, including the police and the courts, failed to understand or fully grasp them, leaving well-meaning people vulnerable to arbitrary and discriminatory decisions being made against them.
These convictions were appalling, unsettling and in my opinion plainly wrong. The response to criminalise two men with very real and reasonable concerns about the mental health implications upon the local community because of the draconian legislation passed is completely disproportionate. Moreover, contrary to public and often law enforcement understanding, the Coronavirus regulations never completely prohibited protesting, even during periods of national lockdown. The interference with Marcus and Richards’ fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly cannot be said to be a proportionate response, given that both were engaging in legitimate protest.
Marcus Blackett said:
The Covid tier 1,2,3,4 regulations were opaque and confusing, and what still remains unclear is whether the right to protest was banned, because this is an unalienable right, and suspending it is illegal, unless expressly ordered by the Chief Constable. When the CCTV spotted our High Street protest, every other on-duty officer ignored it, all except for Sgt Garrett Gloyn who was in a village eight miles away at the time. I will be looking at laying charges if, indeed, it is the case that protests were not banned.
Richard House, a chartered psychologist, said:
Of course this is tremendous news for both ourselves and, more importantly, for the freedom movement more generally. Our only regret is that we won’t now have our day in court and the opportunity to have a full public airing of all the shenanigans surrounding Covid and its legion vicissitudes. Indeed, we suspect that this might well be the real reason for the CPS dropping the case – i.e., it was determined to obviate the embarrassment of the whole Covid psychodrama being publicly deconstructed in a court of law. There’s no doubt that our brilliant legal team would have driven a coach and horses through all of it – and the CPS knew it. We would like to thank both our solicitors, the London criminal law firm Murray Hughman, and also the many friends and supporters who generously supported our legal fund. Thanks also to the great freedom-loving publishing editors who supported our case – Toby Young, Simon Best, Tom Raines and Darren Smith. Thank you, one and all, for enabling this great blow for freedom and human rights to be struck.
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The judiciary needs to be put in its place. The people are sovereign. Withdrawing from the reach of the European Court of Human Rights is a necessary condition for the restoration of democracy in England.
BLiar’s UK 1998 HRA act embeds the German Empire’s HR and open borders. This is the ‘legal’ reason why nothing is being done. The uniparty does not care. They all make money from it.
And then put our Supreme Court in its place: no more overreach
No government can protect its people from something that doesn’t exist. This means that this is not about controlling the weather, so what is it about controlling?
“People and all their activities, including birthrates and population growth. resources including oil, coal and gas, rare minerals etc etc”. —–That will just about cover it for starters.
Of course my question was rhetorical.
You asked “so what is it controlling” and I answered. ——–You are correct it isn’t and never was about the climate. —–Infact I would go so far as to say it is about almost everything else EXCEPT the climate.
We’re basically going back to the dark ages.
Instead of witches and the devil it’s global warming. The thing pushed by religious fanatics and used by the sociopathic to crush people in their way.
Plus throw in the odd “pandemic” to ramp up the fear
This is just as crazy as the Canadian idiot suing the govt because he wants them to fund his fetish to have both a prick and a pussy. He can go f- himself (literally and figuratively)
No govt can singularly protect its people from something that, by definition, is global. This is patently absurd. Moreover, “One woman said she could not leave her house for three weeks during the summer.” is not a threat to her life.
What will they do? Provide the populace with Umbrella’s in the winter and parasols and fans in the summer?
Or maybe fairy dust, and lashings of wishful thinking?
As US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent in the “gay marriage” case:
“The Court’s decision today is at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits. The Framers created our 2 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES THOMAS, J., dissenting Constitution to preserve that understanding of liberty. Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a “liberty” that the Framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect. Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government. This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic. I cannot agree with it.”
Exactly so.
Obama called the Constitution “A document of negative Liberties” . he said “It says what the government cannot do to you, but does not say what the government can do for you”. ———–No doubt protecting us all from climate change would be one of those things Obama and the democrats would want to do for people—-to “protect us”
When St Barry says ‘do for you’ he means ‘do to you’. And that’s what Common Law and Constituions are for, to stop Governments being actively engaged in deciding what you must have.
And in deciding what other people must have, that will be taken from you.
Thanks. I didn’t realise he had said that. No surprise to learn that’s what he thinks, but interesting he was happy to admit to it publicly.
wink
The architectural ugliness of the ECHR building, which resembles a pair of slurry silos, is a metaphor for many of the decisions they take.
“have to protect people from climate change”. ———-Which ofcourse means everything that is contained in NET ZERO. ——We will remove your petrol car to protect you from climate change. We will take away your gas boiler to protect you from climate change. We will take away all the cheap energy and give you expensive energy, we will force you to have a smart meter all to protect you from climate change. ——Basically we will just get the entire GREEN BLOB force you back to preindustrial times with it all to “protect you”———————-ha ha ha ah a jeezus. ——Why am I laughing, because it would only be funny if it was not so utterly PATHETIC
As opposed to protecting ppl from freezing to death in this ice age in which we live.
Doesn’t harm have to be proven?
I have not read up on the three cases. I imagine the complainants have made some vague references to anxiety which makes it all your* fault.
*’Your’ being a reference to whoever they’re complaining about.
Presumably the judges will take their bench down to the beach and get cross when the incoming tide makes their feet wet.
Surely you are not suggesting they are as stupid as a certain king, long ago? Then of course there is the present one. Does nothing ever change?
It is a rather bold assertion that a government has a duty to protect against the natural ordering of things. They might have a duty to protect you from a criminal or an enemy state. This can clearly be seen as part of the social contract. But I don’t see how it could ever be argued that a government has a duty to protect its people from climate change. You might say that any government is duty bound to examine any crisis that might come along or any activity which might be detrimentally affecting the weather but they are attempting to say something different. They have violated logic in the attempted persuance of a scam. Thankfully the whole world is starting to get it. It is as if we, the masses, are some sort of pustule and they will inject needle after needle into it in the hope that it might go away.
They forget they work for us.
Oft quoted here (although phrasing escapes me) “we cannot vote our way out of this”
I’m not completely convinced. So many of the constituencies in the last GE were won with turnouts well under 20k. FPTP is an obvious impediment, but anger is a fabulous motivator, so campaign to make people angry (if they’re not already). Likely we’d be called conspiracists, deplatformed or insulted but I’m politically homeless right now and really pissed off…
I think FPTP should go. Even though countries with PR seem to be doing no better, at least there’s a chance of getting a voice.
“Oft quoted here (although phrasing escapes me) “we cannot vote our way out of this”
Would it be…
Our salvation will not arrive via the ballot box.
My advice would be listen to some music and read some poetry because thereis no space in their universe for either. Like Bob Marley him say, we chant down Babylon.
We all know and can feel that something really big is about to happen. And so your humanity should drive you towards how we manage that situation and its aftermath because it will probably mean the end of a lot of things. If we are true Brits and really care about reality then we need to be fine tuned to the reality to come.And given the scale of loss that is going to occur over the next few months there won’t be any room for insincerity. We have achieved a lot on these islands in the last two thousand years and well before and we need to look after each other. That will be the main measure when we are sized up.
We are moving into different times. Lets say you got a suden urge to build a boat in your front room – you and your son. This is where we are at so lets develop an understanding based on humanity because of what is to come. This isn’t going to be the way things were in the past on a lot of levels. This time is very bad for women and girls especially given the progress over the last two hundred years. We aim to keep it together and as men we will protect the female realm I’m sure. All I can say is that I devote my time to keeping things together. I put my life in the way of any attempt to destroy it.
“I put my life in the way of any attempt to destroy it.”
Please explain what you mean.
Physical life is by its nature temporary and inevitably ends in physical death.
On the other hand spiritual life is eternal and cannot be destroyed.
So what are you ‘putting your life in the way of any attempt to destroy it’?
“yet another attempted ideological power grab on the part of a self-selecting and self-serving elite out of touch with reality”.”
Could equally apply to the U.N. NATO and the WHO. Hope she’s noticed though I doubt it.
As many of us have said on this site and others Covid was the test run for Locking us up and taking away our freedoms in preparation for the big one, tyranny and a new world order under the auspices of Climate change and emergency. These people are dangerous and are the enemy of freedom and all that is good about western society. We let them rule us and take notice of their directives at our peril.
Seconded
How is it they get to tell us what to do from inside two large water tanks on stilts?
3 words – Burden Of Proof
What is it, provide it unredacted and be prepared to debate it. We want the raw unsullied empirical data, so we ourselves can apply the Scientific method ourselves, with all necessary rigour, and see if we can replicate their claims and finding.