Retired vicar and Insulate Britain supporter from Rochdale facing prison after roadblock in London

L-R: Rev Mark Coleman, Daphne Jackson, Beatrice Pooley, Stephanie Aylett

An Insulate Britain supporter from Rochdale has been found guilty of causing a public nuisance by a Crown Court jury in a trial relating to Insulate Britain’s roadblock at Bishopsgate in the City of London on 25 October 2021.

Reverend Mark Coleman, 63, a retired vicar from Rochdale, was on trial with Daphne Jackson, 72, an osteopath and psychotherapist from Sedbergh; Beatrice Pooley, 65, an English teacher from Kendal and Stephanie Aylett, 28, a medical sales rep from St Albans.

After a 5-day hearing, the 11-person jury took one and a half hours to deliberate before returning a unanimous guilty verdict. The four will appear again for sentencing on 24 March and they have 28 days to appeal the conviction.

The trial started with Judge Silas Reid ruling that the four defendants could not refer to their motivations for blocking the road in their defence.

As with the earlier Insulate Britain jury trials, the defendants were each barred from referring to the climate crisis, insulation or fuel poverty during the trial. An additional restriction imposed in this trial compared with previous trials was on any mention of the 1960s civil rights activists, the Freedom Riders, on which Insulate Britain’s strategy was based.
 

Read more: Retired Rochdale vicar receives suspended sentence after peaceful protest at Kingsbury Oil terminalPublished: 28 September 2022

Rev Mark Coleman said: “I sat on Bishopsgate in the City of London with many other supporters of Insulate Britain as an act of peaceful, non-violent resistance to the murderous behaviour of our government. To leave people in cold, badly insulated homes, especially older and vulnerable people, is immoral and cruel.

“British people care for their neighbours, and do not usually walk by ‘on the other side’, ignoring the suffering of others. Our families, friends and neighbours are suffering. It does not have to be like this.

“Insulating Britain and stopping these reckless plans for new gas and oil wells are common sense first steps away from disaster. I call on Rishi Sunak to do his duty as a minister of the crown: to serve the people.”

In the five previous Insulate Britain jury trials for public nuisance charges, two trials so far have resulted in acquittals, one has resulted in a guilty verdict and two have been deferred.

The first Insulate Britain jury trial was deferred until June 2023 after the judge dismissed the jury and asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider whether proceeding with the trial was in the public interest.

The Crown Prosecution Service has chosen to summon a total of 56 supporters to answer at least 201 charges of Public Nuisance across at least 51 jury trials the last of which is scheduled to begin on 4 December 2023.

These trials are planned to be heard across Inner London, Hove, Lewes and Reading Crown Courts and are estimated to take up over 1,400 hours of court time.