(long read)

https://rogerhallam.com/my-trial-was-a-sham/

⚖️My Trial Was A Sham

This is my closing speech to jurors in the Whole Truth Five trial. Afterwards I was found guilty and given a 5-year prison sentence.

Note: This speech was transcribed from a prison phoneline. You can listen to the audio version on Spotify/Apple Podcasts or watch the Youtube video with subtitles.

I would like to start by acknowledging that this has been a strange and difficult trial. As the judge has said, he has never had defendants dragged from the court and put in prison, and it's not usual for the jury to be sent out so often, prevented from hearing what a defendant has to say. I want to apologise for the commotion; it is not how I would like a court case to proceed, but I'd like to draw your attention to a very important outcome of this disruption, namely that the judge was persuaded to change his mind and allow you to see four relevant, agreed facts about this case—about the harm and the criminality that myself and my fellow defendants were intending to draw attention to and prevent.

These four simple facts shine a light on a world of evidence you were prevented from considering in this trial, and it is common sense that if you are not allowed to see both sides of the argument, you cannot be sure of guilt. It is also, therefore, obvious that this has not been a fair trial—not by any common-sense definition. Is this how justice should work? You have heard already, you have to be sure to convict. In any UK court, you have to be sure. As a lawyer said in another trial I was involved in, even if you are just a tiny, tiny bit unsure, the law says you have to find the defendant not guilty. This is because a defendant is innocent unless proven guilty. The prosecution has to prove beyond doubt that there was no reasonable excuse in this particular case, as laid down by an act of Parliament.

Of course, the judge has instructed you that the facts about the massive harm created by the emission of greenhouse gases are not relevant in this case. But you should note that he has also conceded that, to quote, “The facts are as you find them.” You have to interpret those facts, you have to make sense of them, you have to decide what it means—what a fact, an agreed fact, means when it says we face a catastrophe, catastrophic consequences as a country if emissions are not stopped. We face some cold, hard facts in this trial. The judge might want to avoid them, but you make up your own mind. The facts as you find them—this is your job. This is what the law on jury equity means. You have to make up your own mind. You're independent in this court. It is a great responsibility, and given the agreed facts, your responsibility goes well beyond this courtroom.

This charge, as you know, has two aspects: the charge of conspiracy—conspiracy to cause a public nuisance—and then also the charge of public nuisance itself, public nuisance without a reasonable excuse. I will deal first with the conspiracy element. I was not part of any conspiracy. I have said so on oath. I was not party to any agreement to go to the countries. I did not go to any organising meetings. I received no paperwork or documentation. I took no trips, and I did none of the organising. It is not up to me to prove to you these things, but for the prosecution to prove that I did receive paperwork, go to meetings, etcetera. And you all have noticed that they have provided no evidence—no evidence at all. And the reason is because there is no evidence. I was simply not involved.

The prosecution says they have powerful evidence. Notice they didn't say conclusive or overwhelming evidence. What they mean to say is there's some evidence. Some evidence is not proof. You cannot be sure, and if you cannot be sure, then you cannot convict, because you don't have the documents, the equipment, the reports of meetings—there was none.

And so, in my case, they have to try and prove my guilt with the single 20-minute Zoom talk that I did. That's it. As I've said, I've done hundreds of these sorts of talks on civil disobedience, making arguments for people to be involved in specific civil disobedience campaigns. Never before have I been arrested for such a talk.

When I was arrested, I expected to be let out the following day—not put in prison on remand for four months and then put on a curfew tag for one and a half years so I couldn't go out late in the evening. Most of the speech is about the general reasons and arguments for why action is needed, why, and how civil disobedience works. As Dan Shaw introduced me, I was there to give the reasons to step up. I was there to give reasons; I was not part of a conspiracy.

It seems the whole case against me revolves around just 10 lines of the speech—that I knew that the project needed around 60 people, that I said, "We need to get involved." So, on the point of the 60 people, the fact of the matter is, this was widely known. Lots of people knew we needed around 60 people. That does not mean that I was involved in a conspiracy, part of an agreement to take joint action. Knowing information might be part of a conspiracy, but it's common sense that it does not provide conclusive proof. For that, you need corroborative material evidence. As I said, evidence of going to organisation meetings, activities, possession of paperwork, etc. Just knowing something in itself is clearly insufficient.

And when I said, "We," I was saying we are the movement in a general sense. Again, in and of itself, it proves nothing. In contrast, if I'd said, "We need to step up, and I want all of you to join me in a planning meeting next week when I'll go through all the details," then that would have been clear evidence. I did not say that, did I? Because I was not involved. I was not there to make an agreement; I was there to make an argument, to give reasons. That's why the person after me was going to, to quote, "Go into exactly how it works." Why was this? Because I did not know those details. I didn't know about the future meet-up. I knew nothing about what was happening, when, and where. I was there simply to do one thing—to make a speech.

To conclude on this, to be sure, you need to have evidence of concrete actions, material evidence, to be totally sure of innocence. You have to know. You need people to know nothing about the conspiracy. In the middle, as it were, I myself knew something, but that was it. You can speculate that I knew more and I was involved in more things, but self-evidently, you cannot be sure. And because you cannot be sure, you cannot convict.

And there's one more thing to be said about the prosecution case against me. What are the implications for protest?

[continues at link...]