Victory for the Gandalf Three

When we left the Gandalf Three [“Building A Movement,” FE #351, Summer 1998], Noel Molland, Steve Booth and Saxon Burchnall-Wood, editors of England’s Green Anarchist, they were imprisoned following a guilty verdict for conspiring to incite others to cause criminal damage.

The charges and three year prison sentence stems from GA’s reporting of economic and ecological sabotage carried out by the shadowy animal and earth liberation fronts which have caused millions of pounds of damages to earth rapers and animal killers.

The good news is that the three were released on bond in late March 1998, and the conviction overturned on appeal.

Describing the case against them as “fatally flawed,” Lord Justice Henry at the London’s Court of Appeal said that the indictment had been improperly brought. In a stinging attack on the original trial judge, described by the defendants as “the most biased judge in Britain,” the appeals judge said this did not mean that the defendants were being released on a technicality, but “the events that flawed their trial were too fundamental.”

Refusing an application by the Crown for a retrial, Justice Henry ruled that the sentences handed down by Judge David Sellwood would have been “excessive” even if the defendants had been guilty.

Thanks in no small part to the outcry generated by the many individuals and organizations who supported the defendants, whether by signing solidarity pledges, attending meetings, writing protest letters or publicizing the horrendous injustice this case represented, the prosecution of the three defendants has been completely and totally defeated.

For more information contact the Gandalf Support Group, Box 66, Stevenage SG1 2TR, UK; or www.cbuzz.co.uk.