Daniel Woodhouse & Sam Walton write: On 10 July, we had our pre-trial hearing at Blackpool magistrates court. We both pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal damage – charges laid after we entered BAE Warton on 29 January to locate warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia. A trial has been scheduled for four days from 23 October in Burnley.
Our barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh of Matrix Chambers was slightly more on the ball than the crown prosecution service, and constructed as solid a foundation for a trial as we could hope for. She built on the excellent preparatory work of our solicitor Mike Schwarz of Bindmans. We’re deeply grateful for their dedication.
It’s going to be a lot of work as we do not currently have legal aid, but we knew that when we embarked on this path. We are both pleased we will get our day in court and fairly chilled out about the whole thing. We are grateful for the support, thoughts and prayers sent our way.
We’ll both be protesting outside the mega arms fair DSEI in September in East London, and Sam’s running something called Art the Arms Fair.
Topics: Yemen