On 29 March 2023, a retired social worker from Walthamstow, Trudi Warner, was arrested for standing outside Inner London Crown Court and holding up a banner saying: ‘Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.’ Inside, four Insulate Britain activists were on trial for causing a public nuisance. The Solicitor General tried to prosecute Warner for contempt of court; a High Court judge blocked this, claiming it wasn’t in the public interest.
The case marked the beginning of Defend Our Juries, a pressure group which has become a kind of legal offshoot of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. Earlier this year, Defend Our Juries organised a mass sit-in with hundreds of protestors outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where 16 Just Stop Oil activists are appealing their sentences for climbing onto a gantry above the M25.On
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