Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Shrewsbury: Case against Census refuser dismissed

NoCONcensus | 17.05.2012 18:38 | 2011 Census Resistance | Anti-Nuclear | Anti-militarism | Repression | Birmingham

The Crown's case against Judith Sambrook for refusing to complete the 2011 Census was formally dismissed at Shrewsbury Magistrates Court this morning. The CPS offered no evidence against Judith and she was therefore found not guilty. This is the first not guilty verdict we're aware of in relation to 2011 Census refusers. Two cases have been very recently dropped (discontinued) by the CPS, but others are continuing and only this week Deborah Glass Woodin of Oxford was found guilty of the same offence at Reading Magistrates Court.







TODAY INSIDE AND OUTSIDE COURT

The day started at 8.45 am with a vigil for Judith and display of anti-war banners around the foot of (British army Commander-in-Chief, MP and foxhunter) Lord Hill's column a few yards from the court, prompting lots of waves and beeps and causing one passing motorist to leap out of his car shouting “An anti-war demo! In Shrewsbury!”

Around 9.40 Judith, a handful of supporters and a photographer from the local press arrived at the court. After a conference with the solicitor sent by Bindmans to represent Judith, the hearing itself was over in a matter of minutes and the case dismissed when Andrew Warman of the CPS announced that he was not presenting any evidence against her. Judith was granted permission to apply for her out of pocket expenses from central funds.

Her efforts to question the CPS decision not to pursue the case, especially given the other ongoing cases around the country, were rather curtly dealt with by District Judge Nigel Cadbury, who said:

“I can't force them to continue with the prosecution. If you're not guilty, you're not guilty” and then “They've reconsidered the matter and decided not to proceed. I can't force them to give you details. If you want further explanation then you can take it up with them.” He then said something I didn't get down verbatim along the lines that Judith would probably only get a one line answer from the CPS. The CPS is obstructive enough already - encouragement from the judge is uncalled for.


BACKGROUND

Loads of us either refused to complete our Census forms this time round or creatively improved them before returning. Objections fell into three main (overlapping) categories: anti-war objections to the government's contract with weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin; anti-surveillance objections to the government's contract with weapons (and surveillance systems) manufacturer Lockheed Martin; anti-surveillance and privacy objections to the Census in its current form irrespective of contractor. Lockheed Martin has a £15 million contract to process the 2011 census data. Recent news about Lockheed Martin:  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/05/496215.html.

In Scotland, another dodgy company, CACI, got the Census contract, leading to refusals there.

A very small percentage of those people who refused to complete their Census forms in England and Wales have been prosecuted.


PREVIOUS ARTICLES

Summary of cases (May 2012):  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/05/496145.html
Indymedia topic:  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2011/census/
Indymedia feature:  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488424.html

Previous articles about Judith's case:
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/10/487666.html
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/487752.html
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488084.html
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488233.html
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488393.html
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488486.html


FAIR, FEARLESS, EFFECTIVE – THE FANTASY WORLD OF THE CPS

The CPS has been less than forthcoming about the detail of its reasons for dropping cases, which makes its decision to continue with other cases look pretty shabby and unfair.

John Marjoram's case was dropped because the CPS suddenly decided there was “not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction”. Since there was the same amount of evidence as when it confidently brought the prosecution against John earlier in the year, there are questions to be answered over why the case was brought in the first place and why court time and public money (as well as John's time and money) were wasted on a case that was to be dropped on a CPS whim. John Marjoram's press release:  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/05/496093.html

John Voysey's case, which was briefly linked with John Marjoram's (to be dealt with jointly) before Bristol Magistrates apparently objected and sent it back to Wrexham, was dropped at the request of John V's solicitors after John M's case was discontinued.

Judith's case, meanwhile, was dropped because it was “not in the public interest to proceed” according to the CPS. At first, it flatly refused to say why it considered it was no longer in the public interest to pursue the case . Eventually, and only when pressed, it ventured that the decision was based on Judith's health. Despite being informed that Judith was fit to stand trial and the discontinued case being 'revived' by Judith who attended court today, Andrew Warman for the CPS offered no evidence against her. The CPS hadn't mentioned any evidential reason for dropping the case, so it's unclear where the evidence against Judith had gone, nor whether the evidence against other census refusers is also going to vanish in a puff of publicly funded smoke.

None of this lives up to the slogan CPS uses on its website: 'fair, fearless, effective'. 'Unfair, fickle, feckless' might be nearer the mark.


AND LEGAL AID

There are also questions to be asked about legal aid decisions in census refuser cases, in particular why some defendants have passed the public interest test for legal aid while at least one has been repeatedly refused.

NoCONcensus
- e-mail: noconcensus [at] yahoo.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Well Done !

17.05.2012 20:19

Well done Judith !
The CPS are mad. They should of heeded the old saying "Let sleeping dogs lie !"

Jane Howarth
mail e-mail: howarthmurch@btinternet.com


Phew

23.05.2012 16:12

That's fantastic news, well done!

Justice?


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech