Jerome Flynn helps XR co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook at court docket

Game of Thrones actor Jerome Flynn has thrown his help behind Extinction Rebellion co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook as she was spared jail for inflicting greater than £27,000 price of felony injury. 

Dr Gail Bradbrook, 51, scaled the Department of Transport constructing in Horseferry Road, Westminster, to rally fellow eco-warriors on 15 October 2019 in a protest towards HS2.

The molecular biologist clambered onto a ledge above a revolving door earlier than smashing the strengthened window with a chisel and hammer. Bradbrook had likened her actions to these of the suffragette motion when she was arrested after the demonstration.

She was convicted of felony injury by a jury at Isleworth Crown Court after simply 45 minutes following her retrial.

Supporting her exterior court docket immediately was Mr Flynn, who performed Bronn within the hit HBO sequence. The actor, who additionally performed Paddy Garvey in Soldier Solider, mentioned he was ‘happy with her’ for standing up for the local weather. 

Mr Flynn mentioned: ‘I’m right here to help my pal Gail, as a result of I’m happy with her and what she and all of those ladies are standing up for.

‘There’s against the law on the coronary heart of the case this morning and it isn’t Gail smashing up this window, it is the plan that HS2 was and nonetheless is partly which is against the law towards nature, against the law towards our youngsters and our futures.

‘If I consider a world with out Extinction Rebellion I feel we’d be in a a lot worse place.

‘And immediately’s case sort of reveals you the place we’re at. That they’re prepared to cost Gail for popping out and defending life.

‘It reveals you that we’re on the dying ends of a system that’s disconnected from life and never sooner or later for our youngsters. Gail is a mom who merely desires to guard that.

‘This nation is without doubt one of the most depleted by way of its personal pure sources and its lack of habitat for nature, for our youngsters. Without which our planet won’t be one price dwelling on.’

He added: ‘Hers is not the crime. The crime on the coronary heart of it’s this very disconnected plan to make life extra handy for some privileged few.’

Mr Flynn was pictured on the similar XR protest the place Bradbrook was arrested. 

Bradbrook’s first trial came about on 17 July however the jury was discharged by Judge Martin Edmunds, KC, the following day after she defied his order to cease talking about her motivations.

Before she was sentenced immediately Bradbrook wept as she mentioned that local weather change signifies that ‘life is being killed’.

She mentioned: ‘It’s being killed. Where are the killers within the court docket? Where is the justice within the court docket system? We cannot see it so I’m compelled to behave.

‘I keep that my actions have been logical and proportionate and that an absolute discharge is acceptable. I’m not a felony.’

She referred to different comparable circumstances involving local weather activists wherein juries had acquitted.

Bradbrook gave for instance the current trial of six XR protestors who used a decommissioned fireplace engine to spray the Treasury constructing in Whitehall with faux blood in October 2019.

All six have been acquitted of felony injury by a jury at Southwark Crown Court in October this 12 months.

Bradbrook mentioned: ‘Repeatedly when jurors hear the complete info about these knowingly inflicting mass lack of life they take motion to guard life.’

Of the precise injury she brought on, Bradbrook mentioned: ‘I did not count on the prices of the injury to be so excessive. The intention wasn’t to trigger severe injury. It was one pane of glass.’

Speaking after the sentencing, Bradbrook addressed a crowd of supporters exterior Isleworth Crown Court, a lot of whom have been dressed as suffragettes in classic garments and carrying greed, white and purple ribbons.

She mentioned: ‘I used to be discovered responsible of felony injury and am being punished with 150 hours of neighborhood service, though I contemplate every little thing that I already do to be a service to our neighborhood.

‘I did what was proper to do, and the regulation on this nation is unable to recognise this. This present regulation is more and more set towards efficient types of protest.

‘The regulation is unable to serve justice. It is ready to prosecute folks like myself who’re conscientious protectors of life.

‘It is ready to permit insurance policies which actively destroy and imperil life. It is ready to produce injunctions of nice value to people who find themselves enterprise peaceable protest.

‘It is ready to prosecute governments for climate-friendly insurance policies on behalf of firms.’

Bradbrook pledged to hold on with acts of resistance ‘within the face of a a failed democracy and a failed authorized system’.

‘Let’s not idiot ourselves that the path of journey is repressive and its authoritarian.

‘Today the federal government, by way of the CPS, advised that I must be prevented from attending any protests going forwards.’

She continued: ‘Given this panorama we should flip our face away from the courts, from parliament and from regulation, by way of in search of any sort of treatment, for any sort of sanity, for any sort of justice.

‘So the place ought to we face as a substitute? Let’s flip to our household the world over who we take part wrestle.’

Flynn, a pal of Bradbrook and supporter of Extinction Rebellion, additionally addressed the gathering in a speech that recalled hit HBO present Game of Thrones, wherein he starred.

Addressing Bradbrook, the actor and singer mentioned: ‘You shared with me that alongside the best way, on this trial, the choose instructed the jury to be chilly and calculating, by way of whenever you have been talking and your causes for doing this.

‘It says all of it by way of that oncoming menace. In Game of Thrones it was clear: the white walkers have been coming and so they have been killing everyone.

‘You cannot say the oncoming menace is the local weather. The oncoming menace is right here in entrance of us, in our hearts, in our buildings, in our energy constructions, within the humanity we have forgotten about.

‘That’s the menace, and the sword that you simply wielded immediately is the sword of fact and love.’

He additionally criticised the federal government’s scrapped HS2 challenge, the main focus of Bradbrook’s protest.

He mentioned: ‘The indisputable fact that HS2 was even a plan in someone’s head is sort of a sign of the place the main focus of our system and our authorities has come, which is not about life nurturing and life [preservation] going ahead.

‘It’s a life-destructive tradition which is about extracting and taking from, and we have misplaced our connection.

‘So I feel the motion Gail’s taking, and ones like that, are essential to wake us up, as a result of we’re all, myself included, half asleep and in denial of what is really happening.’

Judge Edmunds instructed Bradbrook: ‘The offence occurred on the morning of fifteenth October 2019 whenever you have been helped by one other to climb onto a ledge above a doorway to the Department for Transport constructing in Horseferry Road, London.

‘Once there you hooked up stickers to the constructing bearing protest slogans, introduced that you simply have been protesting a few vary of points together with the local weather and the development of the High Speed 2 rail line, after which used a hammer and bradawl to assault the massive pane of safety glass that was behind you.

‘You continued within the assault regardless of the request of law enforcement officials to cease, and regardless of being instructed, from under, that you simply have been being arrested for felony injury.

‘The pane of glass was severely broken and the price of changing it got here to £27,660.21, partly as a result of it was essential to shut Horseferry Road on a Satuday so as to being in a crane and cellular platforms to switch that pane.’

‘During the trial you sought to dispute the prosecution case that you simply acted to attract consideration to the subject material of your protest. That was absurd.

‘At least one journalist had been notified of the proposed motion prematurely and it was clearly your intention to commit against the law adequate to draw the publicity you sought from that crime, and to make sure you have been arrested and prosecuted.

‘This prosecution is one you actively sought.’

He added that he took her ‘conscientious motive’ for committing the offence into consideration when deciding on entence.

Judge Edmunds mentioned he was positive Bradbrook ‘meant to trigger very severe injury’, and there was a ‘excessive diploma of planning and premeditation’ in her actions.

Bradbrook, of Stroud, Gloucestershire, denied however was discovered responsible of felony injury.

She was sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment, suspended for 15 months, with a supervision order for 12 months.

She was additionally ordered to finish 150 hours unpaid work in the neighborhood, inside 12 months. No order was made for compensation or prices.

Speaking after her conviction in November Chris Packham mentioned: ‘Shooting the courageous messengers is vindictive, merciless, reckless and historical past won’t look kindly upon the perpetrators of this type of ‘justice’.

‘It betrays any sort of moral consideration and shows an abject disregard for our terrifying actuality and the pressing want to handle it. Shameful behaviour from the judiciary.’

Actress Emma Thompson had mentioned: ‘In the identical approach we honour the ladies who broke home windows to realize the vote, so we are going to honour the individuals who break home windows so as to acquire actual motion within the face of lethal local weather collapse. People who threat shedding their freedom for the sake of different people and for the safety of all future generations should not criminals however heroes.’