Ministers weigh in behind pardon for ‘metric martyrs’
Convictions of five market traders who refused to bow to EU measures could be overturned
MINISTERS are working on plans to pardon the so-called “metric martyrs” – five market traders for selling their wares in pounds and ounces two decades ago.
Any change in the law is likely to mean that shops will be allowed to decide for themselves whether to sell goods in imperial measurements alone.
Greengrocers Steve Thoburn, Colin Hunt and Julian Harman, and fishmonger John Dove were all convicted in 2001 for selling produce in imperial measurements. Greengrocer Janet Devers – the fifth “martyr” – was convicted in 2008. Mr Thoburn died in 2004.
A campaign for them to be pardoned will formally launch on July 4, the 21-year anniversary of the day that two Trading Standards officers, accompanied by two police officers, seized three sets of imperial scales from Mr Thoburn’s stall. Letters have been sent to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, asking for them to be pardoned.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that work is already under way. Officials at the Business Energy and Industrial Strategy department are looking first at how they can repeal the legislation under which they were convicted.
Once that has taken place, the martyrs or their families would have to apply to the Ministry of Justice for a disregard of their convictions. One government source said: “It is ridiculous that a greengrocer cannot sell pears in imperial measures.”
If the law is changed, it is likely that it will mean shops will be allowed to sell their goods in either imperial or metric measures, or both, for the first time in decades. Boris Johnson made a pledge on the 2019 general election campaign that he would lift the EU’s ban on shops selling in imperial measurements.”
Mr Thoburn, then a Sunderland greengrocer, was convicted of two offences under the Weights and Measures Act 1985. That same year Mr Hunt was convicted of six offences under the
Price Marking Order 1999 for failing to display a unit price per kilogram.
Mr Dove and Mr Harman were also convicted of two offences under the Price Marking Order 1999 of failing to display a unit price per kilogram, and of two offences of using a scale only capable of weighing in the imperial system.
Speaking before his death from heart failure in 2004, Mr Thoburn said: “All I wanted to do was give my customers what they wanted. I’m not a hero, I’m just a hardworking man.”
This weekend Mr Thoburn’s daughter Georgia, 24, whose mother Leigh died aged 43 in 2016, told The Sunday Telegraph: “My Dad was just an ordinary market trader who became an extraordinary, reluctant hero.”
Mr Hunt, 72, now a restaurateur in east London, said: “I will be pleased if my name is eventually cleared.” Mr Harman, 62, who runs a removals and furniture business in Cornwall, added: “I feel justice needs to be finally served, especially posthumously for Steve.
Ms Devers, 77, had to pay nearly £5,000 in costs and received a criminal record. She said: “I look forward to the day we can say we have been pardoned and look back with pride on the way the British public rallied behind us.”
‘It is ridiculous that a greengrocer cannot sell pears in imperial measures’