Then, when the defendants have been convicted of ordinary crimes and the jury's gone home, the judge decides to sentence them for something else entirely. Because it seems to me, when you come down to it old boy, that these revolting little people are really terrorists. Judge, jury and executioner.
What this means is that anyone involved in direct action protests could be sentenced as terrorists, whether or not they belong to a banned group and whether or not terrorism is *even mentioned at the trial*. Without informing the jury, the judge secretly marks the case as "terrorism connection".
Even more disturbing is what happened at Woolwich Crown Court last week, where the Crown prosecutors chose not to try Palestine Action protesters as terrorists, as the jury would be unlikely to convict. They were convicted as ordinary criminals. But then the judge *sentenced* them as terrorists.
Who knew that this could happen? I didn't. But it turns out that the Sentencing Act 2020 allows judges to send people down for crimes for which they have not been tried or convicted, with far longer sentences and far more draconian conditions than they would otherwise face. It gets worse - read on.
Sonic the hedgehog !!!
A massive shift is taking place here. Well-organised far-right terrorism is being treated as ordinary criminality, while conscience-driven protests against genocide are treated as terrorism. A highly conservative (and deeply weird and fantastical) Court of Appeal ruling embeds this shift.