London24NEWS

Swampy and his fellow anti-HS2 protesters who occupied Euston station tunnels face retrial

Swampy and his fellow anti-HS2 protesters who occupied Euston station tunnels face retrial after prosecutors argued that charges against them were only dropped on ‘trivial’ technicality

  • The six, part of HS2 Rebellion, previously denied aggravated trespass
  • Case brought against them after activists tunneled under Euston Square Gardens
  • Protests were due to objections to the redevelopment of the area for HS2

Prosecutors have secured a retrial of anti-HS2 protesters who occupied tunnels near Euston station after arguing in a High Court challenge that charges against them were dismissed on a ‘trivial’ technicality.

Daniel Hooper, also known as Swampy, Dr Larch Maxey, Isla Sandford, Lachlan Sandford, Juliett Stevenson-Clarke and Scott Breen previously denied aggravated trespass through obstructing or disrupting a person engaging in a lawful activity.

The Crown Prosecution Service brought a case against them after activists dug tunnels beneath Euston Square Gardens and lived in them for a month.

The six, part of a group called HS2 Rebellion, were involved in protest action at the central London green space over objections to the redevelopment of the area for the high-speed railway line.

Pictured: Swampy, (real name Daniel Hooper) and HS2 protesters appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court facing charges relating to their underground protest in tunnels under Euston Square gardens

The protest was reported to have cost developers £3.5million – with £2.8million spent on enforcement officers to remove the activists from the site.

At Highbury Magistrates’ Court last October, District Judge Susan Williams dismissed the charges because HS2 was not carrying out construction work at the site at the time of its occupation.

But the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Max Hill KC, later brought a High Court challenge seeking to quash the judge’s decision.

In a ruling on Friday, High Court judges concluded that her approach to the decision was ‘fundamentally flawed’ and directed the case back to the magistrates’ court for a retrial before a different judge.

‘We take the view that there remains a strong public interest in the trial running its proper course,’ Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson said.

Pictured: HS2 Rebellion protestors camp in Euston Square, London

At a hearing last month, Louis Mably KC, for the DPP, argued the district judge was ‘irrational’ in concluding that evicting protesters and clearing the land was not ‘HS2 construction’ – the description in the original charges of the lawful activity allegedly disrupted – and that the protesters had therefore ‘no case to answer’.

It meant the prosecution ‘fell on a technical drafting defect which… had no bearing on the substance’ of the case and could have been ‘easily remedied by amendment’, Mr Mably said.

Clare Montgomery KC, representing Mr Breen as an interested party in the High Court case, said the judge had made ‘reasonable factual findings’ that ‘there was no construction work taking place on the site nor was there any construction work that was about to take place on the site’.

She said the charges, which carry a maximum possible sentence of three months in prison upon conviction, came out of an ‘otherwise peaceful demonstration’ nearly two years ago, with the delay leading up to a potential retrial lessening the public interest in the prosecution continuing.

But Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson said the judge was ‘wrong’ to conclude that the words ‘HS2 construction’ did not cover clearance works.

They said their meaning was ‘sufficiently broad’ to ‘encompass works that are part of the overall construction project’, such as ‘safely securing the land, clearing it, preparing it, transporting materials onto it and building the railway’.

Daniel Hooper, also known as Swampy, Dr Larch Maxey, Isla Sandford (pictured), Lachlan Sandford, Juliett Stevenson-Clarke and Scott Breen previously denied aggravated trespass through obstructing or disrupting a person engaging in a lawful activity

The judges concluded: ‘The overriding objective is that criminal cases should be dealt with justly which means acquitting the innocent, and convicting the guilty and dealing with the prosecution and the defence fairly.

‘Dismissing a charge because of a technical defect in the particulars of the offence which has no impact on the substance of the case and which can be amended without causing any delay or injustice to the parties, is unlikely to be compatible with the overriding objective.’

Judges were previously told that the six protesters were among 40 protesters who set up camp in the park early last year, building wooden structures in trees and secretly digging a tunnel network.

HS2 possessed the area, where it planned to build a taxi rank, before the tunnels were discovered in late January last year.

A warrant ordering protesters off the site was issued by HS2 and a number of High Court injunctions were obtained amid its weeks-long efforts to evict protesters, whose disruption cost the company an estimated £3.5 million.