In this case, a jury found a group of global warming “campaigners” not guilty of causing £35,000 damage to a coal-fired power plant because their vandalism was “justified”.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.
To borrow a phrase from John Stossel, “Give me a break!”
All this will do is allow anyone with a cause to claim any criminal action they take was a lawful excuse to prevent one social malady or another. It's going to be open season for anyone with a grudge and the will to commit violent acts.
Now if they also allowed the “They just plain needed killin'” justification for stopping such criminal miscreants, then it would all balance out. But seeing that Britain is one of those places where only criminals are allowed to carry guns, I doubt that will come to pass.
As I wrote in a comment over at No Looking Backwards, where I found this story, “I think I'm going to call a few friends in the UK and strongly suggest they either emigrate to the US or start an underground revolutionary organization to return sanity to British law.”
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