Vicar has her conviction for demo at MoD site quashed
AVICAR who took part in a peaceful Extinction Rebellion demonstration outside a Bristol Ministry of Defence site has had her conviction quashed.
Rev Sue Parfitt, 80, sat in a camping chair outside an entrance to the complex at Abbey Wood, in Filton, in 2020.
Bristol Crown Court heard Ms Parfitt was among a group of protesters who blockaded three entrances on the morning of December 11, 2020.
MoD security allowed protests to continue at two entrances, but demonstrators at the main entrance were stopping vehicles accessing the site – but not pedestrians or cyclists.
The protest took place after the Government announced a funding boost for the Ministry of Defence – twice what it was allocating for climate change. It came on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Paris Climate Accord, at which the Government agreed to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C.
The court heard the Ministry of Defence was targeted because it was one of the Government’s major contributors to carbon emissions, but had been excluded from carbon emission targets. On that day, during the tier 3 Covid restrictions, only between 150 and 200 people were required on the site, plus contractors, builders and delivery personnel.
Ms Parfitt, who sat in a chair in the middle of the road, was arrested after a four and a half hour protest. She was charged and later convicted of obstructing the highway, after a trial at Bristol Magistrates’ Court. She was fined £250 and told to pay £500 costs.
The pensioner appealed against the conviction and told the court she was a member of Christian Climate Action, a group linked to Extinction Rebellion.
“Justice is the central theme of Christianity and justice is at the heart of the issues of climate change and the impending climate catastrophe,” she said. “I have to say children born now have no future unless we can turn this crisis round.”
Giving evidence, she accepted the protest caused disruption to the public. She said: “I apologise to them, of course. They are my fellow citizens and I don’t want to disrupt their day. However, somehow, we need to try and get across to everybody, all of us, the gravity of the situation we are facing.
“If you remember back in the beginning of Covid-19 there were scenes in supermarkets of people fighting over toilet rolls. That is going to be nothing when you are fighting over food, water and fuel and all the basic qualities of life. That is what is coming down the line, not long now, and certainly to our children and grandchildren.”
Lawyers for the retired family therapist, from Westbury-on-Trym, argued she had a lawful excuse to protest following a Supreme Court ruling that said blocking a road to an arms fair was legal.
Allowing the appeal and quashing Ms Parfitt’s fine, Recorder Robin Sellers said: “The appellant submits the protest was reasonable in all the circumstances and therefore avails a lawful excuse.
“There was no disorder or instances of aggression on the evidence, that it was a protest of relatively short duration ending before 11am and causing only seven vehicles to be inconvenienced in that period.”
He added: “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.
“We find that the prosecution has not satisfied us so that we are sure this was an unreasonable use of a highway. Therefore this appeal is allowed.”