UK Jury Clears Climate Activists Accused of Damaging HSBC's London Headquarters

In April 2021, nine women broke the windows of HSBC's headquarters building using hammers and chisels as part of a protest by Extinction Rebellion, a UK-basedgroup of climate activistsExtinction Rebellion)). 

Nine climate protesters tried for causing £500,000 worth of criminal damage to the windows of HSBC bank's headquarters in London were cleared by a jury last week.

On 22 April 2021, the 9 women, all members of theExtinction Rebellion group, shattered the custom-made glass windows using hammers and chisels while singing and chanting.

Wearing patches reading "better broken windows than broken promises" on their clothes, the activists also placed stickers on the bank's windows reading "£80bn into fossil fuels in the last five years".

Jessica Agar, 23, Blyth Brentnall, 32, Valerie Brown, 71, Eleanor Bujak, 30, Clare Farrell, 40, Miriam Instone, 25, Tracey Mallaghan, 47, Susan Reid, 65, and Samantha Smithson, 41, denied that the damage they caused amounted to criminal damage. They were cleared by a jury last week after a three-week trial.

After the verdict, Clare Farrell, a lecturer in sustainable fashion at Central Saint Martins, said: "This was a trial of unusual agreement; the realities of our time were not in any dispute, and strangely, the fact that we are on course for civilizational breakdown and climate collapse was not in dispute either."

She added: "It is tragically surreal to live in times when the justice system agrees that we are all doomed but has nothing to say about the cause, the remedy, the victims or the perpetrators. We must continue, and we will."

Opening the case, prosecutor Sally Hobson said: "They accept that on 22 April 2021 they went to the HSBC building with hammers and chisels and that they used those tools to break the windows; they are therefore responsible for the damage." She added: "The value of the damage caused is in the region of £500,000, and additional security measures taken to ensure damage was not caused again led to further expenditure."

Prosecutor Hobson also said: "Although the defendants accept that they caused the damage, they deny that their actions amount to criminal conduct. Simply put, the damage was caused during a protest and the defendants say that they were lawfully justified in doing what they did." She continued: "We say that whatever the purpose behind them causing the damage, there was no lawful excuse for doing so. It was unlawful conduct beyond a lawful protest."

Reid, a retired community worker from Preston, said after the acquittal: "Unicef estimates that more than 20,000 children are displaced every day, and that climate change is the key driver. That means that on every day of our three-week trial, more than 20,000 children had to gather the things around them and leave where they were, and none of those children will be able to go home at the end of the day."

Reid also said: "I have spent my life caring for the people around me, and I refused to stand by while HSBC poured money into the very thing we know is causing unimaginable harm. The jury's verdict today shows that ordinary people will not consent to the destructive violence of investing in fossil fuels in 2023."

Source:The Guardian

This news item was translated into Turkish by Seren Anaçoğlu.