Hot take: The cops knew the case wouldn't stand but it worked just fine to get her protest out of the way for the fossil fuel summit to continue.
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Nah I think they just got a judge who gives a shit about humanity…
The Section of the Public Order Act 1986 lays out rules for how police can control “public assemblies” – defined as a gathering of two or more people in a public place.
Police officers can issue them if they “reasonably believe” that the protest “may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.
It can also do so if it belives the purpose of the organisers is to “intimidate others”.
What surprised me was this is the older legislation. I thought they would use the newer anti protest legislation which even legislates against a protest being too noisy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Greta Thunberg and four others charged with public order offences over a protest in London have been cleared after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer.
Thunberg was charged alongside Christofer Kebbon, Joshua James Unwin, Jeff Rice and Peter Barker with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act”.
They had been taking part in a protest outside the InterContinental hotel in Mayfair, the venue for the Energy Intelligence Forum (EIF), a fossil fuel industry summit attended by corporate executives and government ministers.
All were arrested after the senior officer at the scene enacted the section 14 order to impose conditions on the protest, which had blocked access to and from the hotel for guests and EIF delegates.
Raj Chada, representing Thunberg, Kebbon and Unwin, had argued that his clients had not had the details of the section 14 order properly communicated to them by the arresting officers.
Earlier, the officer who arrested Thunberg told the court he did not take into account her media profile when giving her time to comply with a restriction placed on the protest she was attending.
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