Climate activist Greta Thunberg was on Friday cleared of a public order offence alleging that she had refused to follow a police order to leave a protest that blocked the entrance to a major oil and gas industry conference in London last year, after a judge in a London court ruled she had no case to answer.
Judge John Law said there were “significant deficiencies in the evidence” presented against Thunberg and the others to back charges that they had breached the Public Order Act during the October 17 incident. Law said the police could have taken less restrictive measures, didn’t properly define where protesters should move and the order to disperse that was given was “so unclear that it was unlawful” that those who didn’t comply committed no offense.
A packed public gallery applauded after Law said, “The prosecution evidence is insufficient for any reasonable court to properly convict and I exercise my discretion to acquit all five defendants.” Thunberg had faced a fine of up to 2,500 pounds ($3,190) if she had been convicted.
Thunberg was one of dozens of people arrested in October outside a London hotel where the Energy Intelligence Forum was hosting oil and gas industry leaders. She and four others were accused of failing to comply with an order by police to move their protest to a designated area near the conference.
Metropolitan Police Superintendent Matthew Cox said he had worked with protesters for about five hours before he issued an order for demonstrators to move to an adjacent street. Thunberg was outside the front entrance of the hotel when she was given a final warning she would be arrested if she didn’t comply, prosecutor Luke Staton said. She said she intended to stay where she was.
Last summer, Thunberg was fined by a Swedish court for disobeying police and blocking traffic during an environmental protest at an oil facility. She had already been fined for the same offense previously in Sweden. Thunberg became a prominent campaigner worldwide after staging weekly protests in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018.
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