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Nonviolent resistance to militarism
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Army Presentation Action court case
Watford Magistrates' court, 23 October 2002
This is the report for the court case following the Army Presentation
action in Watford (See 'Previous Events')
Today the case against five d10 Group activists took an unexpected turn when, before the trial even started, the prosecution and police made a substantial plea bargain type offer for all the defendants, even though they had brought witnesses from the British army from as far afield as York.
In essence this resulted in the three activists charged solely with disrupting a public meeting being given a caution, with one of the activists charged with this and a further two counts of criminal damage also being cautioned against the first charge and the prosecution withdrawing all evidence on the two counts of damage.
However, in exchange for the caution and withdrawal of evidence for two counts of criminal damage against one activist, the deal demanded that the fifth activist changed his plea to guilty on two counts of criminal damage and one of disrupting a public meeting.
As the probability of ultimate conviction for both activists who were
charged with the two counts of criminal damage was exceptionally high,
the saving in time (the three-day trial became a three hour process)
and money (total court costs of 40 GBP - as opposed to a predicted 400+ GBP) resulted in the fifth activist accepting the deal.
In consequence he was fined 250 GBP (100 GBP for each count of criminal
damage and 50 GBP for the count of disrupting a public meeting), ordered
to pay 40 GBP court costs, and served with a compensation order for 2005 GBP
(yup, that's two thousand!) payable to the army. A total of 2295 GBP.
No arrangement was made as to how/if this sum will be paid and the matter will now be transferred to his local court.
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