I'm not sure how your "statement in his defence" would do anything for his defence. Mitigation, maybe, but I don't see any defence here. And the mitigation was already entirely successful. That's why they're back home.
While getting arrested is not the _point_ of civil disobedience, it is entirely within expectations that you'll be arrested and convicted. Agg. Trespass is pretty easy to prove, the police officers knew perfectly well that they had no need to characterise the protesters other than as "non-violent and sensible" since they weren't charging affray or any other crime which that supposition would contradict.
And Joint Enterprise is easy to prove too. No specific individual need to be proved to have done anything, if it can be established that it was done by the group and that the individual charged, a member of that group, would have reasonably foreseen that it might be done (e.g. Joint enterprise murder for shooting a guard during an armed robbery). A group of people agreed to trespass (in Fortnum & Mason) knowing they may interfere with lawful activity (shopping) carrying on there, and some of them do so. Joint Enterprise Agg. Trespass. Guilty.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zvi and
no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 11:06 am (UTC)While getting arrested is not the _point_ of civil disobedience, it is entirely within expectations that you'll be arrested and convicted. Agg. Trespass is pretty easy to prove, the police officers knew perfectly well that they had no need to characterise the protesters other than as "non-violent and sensible" since they weren't charging affray or any other crime which that supposition would contradict.
And Joint Enterprise is easy to prove too. No specific individual need to be proved to have done anything, if it can be established that it was done by the group and that the individual charged, a member of that group, would have reasonably foreseen that it might be done (e.g. Joint enterprise murder for shooting a guard during an armed robbery). A group of people agreed to trespass (in Fortnum & Mason) knowing they may interfere with lawful activity (shopping) carrying on there, and some of them do so. Joint Enterprise Agg. Trespass. Guilty.