Court judgement on Heathrow protest
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
If you’ve ever been involved at the High Court you’ll know that once a judgement is read out, journalists listen to the first few minutes then run out - missing most of the substance - in order to be first with the story. The news reports are therefore superficial, inaccurate and uninformative, and the headline writers simply follow the editorial leaning of their newspaper or news channel. If you want to learn more you have to dig deeper than the mass entertainment news channels.
Mrs Justice Swift’s ruling on the injunction sought by BAA Heathrow wasn’t available on BAILII at the time of writing, but the Hillingdon Times - many of whose readers are in the vicinity of Heathrow - gives fairly complete information. What this shows is that the Judge was highly critical of BAA, only a very small part of what they were requesting was granted, and the Heathrow Climate Camp protest is allowed to go ahead. What is also clear, is that BAA succeeded in seriously intimidating Geraldine Nicholson, the chair of the residents group ‘No Third Runway Action Group’. After the judgement she is quoted as saying “The person I read about in their ‘evidence’ against me was not someone I recognised. I do not support, endorse or incite unlawful direct action.” She described the last two weeks as “the longest two weeks of my life”. Intimidation of ordinary people is a prime aim of this type of legal action by large, powerful, anti-environment corporations.
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