To think that the Justice system is completely f***ed?

They haven’t got away scot free as this PP points out

And neither of those issues were on trial. This is so messed up.

I mean Israel / Palestine but also the proscription of PA.

Because actual action would require them doing something useful rather than spewing hate.

They don’t give a shit about the victims of their hate and also complain, get nasty and throw in an antisemitic insult if you don’t clap along to their cause

It’s this snarky, above the law attitude that if “Palestine” in the cause then people can have absolutely no limits to what they can do, couple with denial that it’s a problem, which is why I think anyone involved in the pro-pal movement must be a horrific nasty (and probably) Jew hating POS.

I didn’t need to be in court to see the sledgehammer being sunk into a woman, just doing her job’s spine.

How do you feel about the sledgehammer attack?

What 'intensely polarizing' issue do you mean here?

Do you mean the issue of whether the crime was commited is intensely polarizing? Or the issue of Israel / Palestine is intensely polarizing? Or the issue of whether PA is an actual group of terrorists is intensely polarizing? Or some other issue?

It feels very dystopian in the UK currently.

It was about Palestinians and action for Palestinians against Israel.

To some, nothing else matters, you see them each week in London screaming about Palestinine, which they consider ok to do thousands of miles from the area. Shame they don't actually help out actual Palestinians over there rather than cause mayhem here.

This.

Let's not forget her.

You've entirely misunderstood.

It's not whether the perpetrator intended to cause injury prior to the event, it's whether his actions were intended to cause injury.

Hitting someone with a hammer is, obviously, intended to cause injury.

Oh that’s good news , thank you 👆

They have been acquitted of aggravated burglary and three of them have been acquitted of violent disorder.

None of them have been acquitted of criminal damage, three have not been acquitted of violent disorder, sledgehammer guy has not been acquitted of GBH.

Five of them have been released on bail, pending potential retrial. Sledgehammer guy has been remanded in custody.

The fact that breaking the law has few consequences in the UK is old news to those of us from other countries. It's reassuring in one way ( if i ever inadvertantly commit a crime I feel confident I'll never spend a day in prison) and deeply unsettling in another ( If I'm ever a victim of crime I'm also fairly certain the perpetrator won't)

Well, technically, it's now defamatory for you to say they committed this crime when they were acquitted. Funny, isn't it.

The law is an ass and these jurors were assholes.

I don't know, I wasn't in the court. You could be right.

They did commit a crime and the CPS DID prosecute them.

Its the blatant jury bias based on the fearmongering from the antisemites brigade

No it wasn’t a protest, it was a burglary.

And did you miss the woman who took a sledgehammer to the back?

Dorset Police have put out a statement on social media saying people must remember a woman with a fractured spine is still a victim. Good for them.

Perhaps the jury was biased, we will never know. I don't think so because no verdict means they couldn't agree. Probably there were some people with very strong views on both sides of what is an intensely polarising issue.

We do know that like every other jury they were picked randomly and had no choice but to turn up and serve on whatever case they were allocated.

It's been a long trial, conducted under intense public scrutiny. Never mind the posters, the jurors have had to walk through protests on their way in to court and at times have heard evidence against a background of noise from the protest. They will have been told to avoid the media but can hardly have avoided knowing that there was a judicial review going on, or that there were big protests and mass arrests in support of PA, or that there were hunger strikes FFS! Honestly I don't know how I would deal with the kind of pressure they must have been under.

And then they come out of this long, gruelling process and face a barrage of appalling things being said about them. People want them named and shamed, they want pictures so they can see what race they are. They want the jury locked up, strung up.

I think people don't want juries, they want scapegoats.

There will very likely be retrials on at least some of the charges and there are several more trials to come for Filton and Brize Norton. There will no doubt be future trials for future offences. Any of us could be picked next time.

Read the route to verdict guidance they were given for count 4:

realmedia.press/filton-case-route-to-verdict-1/

They had to decide whether it was GBH, GBH with intent, ABH, or whether he was not guilty because he believed he was acting in defence of others.

If 6 of them thought it was GBH and 6 thought it was GBH with intent then no verdict would be reached. This is the down side of bringing alternative charges.

We can see the pitfalls of not providing alternative charges with count 1 - aggravated burglary. The jury did not have the option of considering a plain old burglary charge so if they decided the defendants' behaviour did not meet the 'aggravated' test then they could only return not guilty.

I've no idea but if they've committed a crime and the CPS says to prosecute then they will.

Wth is going on

Yes it makes you wonder what the jury thought his intent was in carrying a sledgehammer, if not aggravated burglary and harming someone……..