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Drax campaigners have convictions quashed as authorities failed to reveal an undercover policeman had driven them to environmental protest | Drax campaigners have convictions quashed as authorities failed to reveal an undercover policeman had driven them to environmental protest |
(2 days later) | |
Twenty-nine campaigners have had their convictions for ambushing a train in 2008 quashed because authorities kept it secret that an undercover policeman had driven them to the environmental protest. | Twenty-nine campaigners have had their convictions for ambushing a train in 2008 quashed because authorities kept it secret that an undercover policeman had driven them to the environmental protest. |
The train was taking fuel to Drax near Selby in North Yorkshire, the largest coal-fired power station in Europe. Judges ruled there had been a failure to pass over information that would have allowed the activists to have a fair trial. | |
The undercover officer Mark Kennedy was the van driver taking the campaigners to the demonstration. He kept notes that were passed to senior officers via his handler – but police or prosecutors kept them secret, Court of Appeal judges heard. | |
Lawyers for the defendants could have argued that the demonstration might never have happened if it had not been for Mr Kennedy, who infiltrated environmental groups for seven years. | |
During the protest coal was shovelled on to the track to stop the train. It lasted 16 hours, and the clean-up cost Network Rail £37,000. Participants were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court in 2009 and 2010 for obstructing the railway. Some were ordered to do unpaid work and others given conditional discharges. | |
Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said: “There was a complete failure to make a disclosure fundamental to the defence … this court has no alternative but to quash the convictions.” | |