Those of you who follow the goings on with Greenpeace and read these blogs will remember that I wrote a blog about the Cairn Energy action at their Edinburgh HQ in July. Greenpeace activists wanted to see the risk assessment for Cairn's drilling plans off the coast of Greenland. Those plans were subsequently released by the Greenland Government.
I acted as legal support for the Cairn 17 as they were arrested and held in Scottish Police cells overnight (and suffered the poor food). I was at the Sheriff's court the next day, witnessing the first few activists appear before the Sheriff (who was wondering if they would appear in costume or not). I then went round the back of the court and met them as they came out to freedom. Many months later and after a second trip to Edinburgh for all of them for the Intermediate Diet (Scottish form of bail appearance), the first activist went for her Trial Diet today where Sheriff MacLeod said that he was not prepared to hold that people who had entered a building in unusual costumes contstituted threatening behaviour. He found Natasha Clarke not guilty and the charges against the other 16 were subsequently dropped. A great day for Greenpeace and I'm sure there will be a few drinks taken tonight across the country.
Just to add a bit to this blog, I just received a phone call from Greenpeace. Apparently Cairn didn't like the original photo I added to this article as it showed the inside of their building with the bears lying around so they contacted Greenpeace and asked them to take down the photo. That injunction seems to be in place even though our activists are not guilty and the pathetic risk assessment has been published, Happy now, Cairn?
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