Priti’s anger after anti-newspaper activists cleared
Middle-class boat stunt was an ‘attack on
PRITI Patel yesterday hit out at three Extinction Rebellion activists who blockaded newspaper printing presses after they were cleared of wrongdoing on a technicality.
The Home Secretary called the protest ‘disruptive and dangerous’ and said it was an unacceptable attack on the free Press.
Psychologist’s daughter Katie Anne Ritchie-Moulin, 22, Harrison Radcliffe, 21, and Luca Vitale, 22, were among 81 people arrested during a night of chaos outside printers in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, Merseyside, in September. Their protest prevented 1,100 retailers from receiving newspapers, including the Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Telegraph, and cost publishers £1.2million.
Yesterday the middle- class trio went on trial at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court accused of aggravated trespass. The court heard they were among demonstrators who used a blue van and yellow boat on a trailer to block the entrance to the Newsprinters works in Knowsley on September 4.
But they were found not guilty by District Judge Paul Healey after it emerged it was unclear if they were parked on private or public land.
The acquittals come as the Home Office is planning controversial changes to legislation, which would give chief constables tough powers to limit static protests such as those used by Extinction Rebellion. Miss Patel said: ‘The free Press is a cornerstone of our democracy, and the disruptive and frankly dangerous tactics deployed by these individuals last year were totally unacceptable. I speak with the police day in, day out and they’ve told me the current legislation used for managing protests is not fit for purpose.’
Judge Healey noted evidence from Alan Griffiths, a manager at the printing press, who was ‘unable to say with certainty’ where the boundary between public and private land lay.
Mark Pritchard, defending Vitale, a cellist, said the judge could not rely on maps from Knowsley Council and HM Land Registry as they had ‘not to be used as legal documents’ written on them. Judge Healey said: ‘I have come to the conclusion I cannot be sure beyond all reasonable doubt the defendants were trespassing.’
Hertfordshire Police charged 51 people with a different offence, obstruction of the highway – which cannot result in a jail sentence – over the Broxbourne printworks protest on the same night. Sources said at the time the discrepancy was down to whether it was on private property or the public highway.
A veteran of climate protests, medical science student Ritchie-Moulin grew up in the prosperous Birmingham suburb of Moseley. Her father has overseen mental health policies across the West Midlands while her mother has a health and social care consultancy with experience of managing multi-million pound budgets.
Photographer Radcliffe attended Leeds Conservatoire, a performing arts and music university, where he was the LGBTQ – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer – student union officer.
The acquittals could threaten the success of future prosecutions, with several others charged with aggravated trespass at Knowsley due to come before the courts.
Toby Young, general secretary of The Free Speech Union, said: ‘This sets a very dangerous precedent.
‘It sends a message to other political activists that they can muzzle the free Press without suffering any consequences.’
‘Sets a dangerous precedent’