Icons demand to see AG
They want to discuss ‘one of the greatest injustices… in modern history’
Some 1200 self-styled cultural icons have written to the attorney general, Lord Hermer KC, “sincerely and with love for all humanity”, seeking an urgent public meeting to discuss the prison sentences passed last week on a group of environmental protestors.
Being cultural icons, they may be unaware that the attorney general’s role in sentencing is limited to referring sentences to the Court of Appeal that the law officers believe are unduly lenient. But you might have thought that some of the lawyers who signed the open letter, which is reported in today’s Times, would have explained that it’s not the attorney’s job to get involved — at this stage in the criminal justice process — in sentences that are said to be too high.
No doubt the five protestors will seek to appeal against their sentences and perhaps also their convictions. As I said in the introduction to a podcast I published at the beginning of last week, I would expect the lady chief justice, Baroness Carr, to preside over the hearing.
The attorney general “superintends” the Crown Prosecution Service. If the Court of Appeal needs help from prosecutors on past sentencing practice in comparable cases, it will say so.
Hermer knows it would be entirely improper for him to do anything that might be seen as interfering with the appeal process or the independence of the courts. I’m sure that’s what he’ll tell the icons.
Update 9 October: The Times reports today that Hermer wrote to the campaigners on 6 October. He rejected a public meeting to discuss these cases because they were, or could possibly be, subject to appeal.
The sentences might be reduced somewhat on appeal but given that the then Carr LJ was the author of R v Trowland and Decker 2023 Crim 919 optimism should be restrained if the Icons hope for an early release.
And I wonder if the police officer who received injuries necessitating time of work, or the member of the public whose treatment for aggressive cancer was delayed by a fortnight, with heaven knows what consequences, would describe the defendants actions as “non violent” in their impact?
Irritating though it may be for “wrinklies” to persist in dragging historical quasi- parallels into the “debate”, what of Peter (now Lord) Hain, in his anti-apartheid days? Would the tearing up of the Lords turf as a stark example have had him convicted and imprisoned under the most recent wave of legislative interference with demonstrations, protests and direct action? If so should we be relaxed about that- or wondering quite when we shall wake up one morning and wonder where all our freedoms and rights have gone? Granted, a respectable argument is there to be had that HIS stance and actions had had to do with an abominable, illiberal and discriminatory system espoused stubbornly by a foreign regime with whom OUR government(s) had maintained trade and other advantageous connections despite a good deal of more orthodox protests which had gone unheeded by the government of the day. With the Just Stop Oil protests, their categories of direct action appear to be founded on the premise that there is no such creature as an innocent bystander. Also, I do believe that SOME of their more disruptive and monetarily damaging initiatives are harder to justify and, indeed, counterproductive if the wish is truly to take the public with you. All of that once said, these cases should in my firm view be evaluated on a case by case basis WITHOUT any judge believe her/himself entitled to prohibit the presenting of one’s case. As examples, I think first of all that ON ITS SPECIFIC FACTS the toppling of Colston’s statue into the harbour WAS justified, that the Recorder of Bristol (an unrelated Blair) had been right to allow the defence teams to present their various lines of defence. That those verdicts in part led to more oppressive legislation is undeniable but in my view to be deplored. As to the convictions in this more recent case, I remain undecided, whereas I very definitely believe that Judge Hehir’s harsh sentences meted out to brave and honourable citizens are grotesque and disproportionate. Right or wrong these caring human beings whatever else deserved some kind of forbearance. Can this, as I hope, be viewed as a malign legacy from the previous Tory administrations and, if so, since obviously there can be no suggestion of interference by the executive in judicial discretion, as a case demanding of a repealing of recent intemperate legislative excrescences?