Court rejects ASBOS for airport activists

On Fri­day, Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “highly organ­ised extrem­ist­sâ€? that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

On Fri­day, Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “highly organ­ised extrem­ist­sâ€? that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

In an appar­ent move aimed to avoid hav­ing the case heard by a jury, the charge of pub­lic nui­sance was dropped, as was the charge relat­ing to an alleged breach of the avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty act.

Plane Stu­pid lawyer, Mike Schwarz, described the action to the court as a “classic piece of civ­il dis­obe­di­enceâ€? and remind­ed the court that “Tony Blair him­self has described cli­mate change as the great­est threat fac­ing mankind.â€?

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Ellen Rick­ford, said, “The same day that we learn the gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its air­port expan­sion pro­pos­als, they try to use ASBOs to stamp out peace­ful protest. Well, it seems their plans for that were as doomed as the avi­a­tion industry.â€?

17 activists got one year con­di­tion­al dis­charges (the min­i­mum sen­tence avail­able) and each was charged £70 in costs. The 5 charged with crim­i­nal dam­age in addi­tion to aggra­vat­ed tres­pass were giv­en vary­ing lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

One per­son was referred to Crown Court due to unre­solved legal issues and anoth­er had his case adjourned until Jan­u­ary 31st. One oth­er activist was unable to attend court due to ill­ness.

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