The Court of Appeal has concluded its judgement today after the Attorney General asked for clarification on whether climate protestors can claim that businesses subject to criminal damage would think it was fine if only they knew the true results of climate change. Guido has considered applying the same argument for socialists…

The court’s judges are decisive in slapping down that legal defence:

“Circumstances” in the phrase “the destruction or damage and its circumstances” do not include the merits, urgency or importance of the matter about which the defendant is protesting, nor the perceived need to draw attention to a cause or situation.“

That means that the 2023 ruling in which Extinction Rebellion founder Roger Hallam and others were cleared of £36,000 worth of damage using that same argument, was wrong. You can’t claim that because you believe that the business owner would have consented to damage had they known its purpose, that counts as reasonable “circumstance“. A major blow dealt to rampant eco-vandalism…