Activist welcomes appeal decision

A Baptist minister convicted over a power station protest has welcomed a decision to allow him and 28 others, sentenced after police used intelligence from an undercover police officer, to appeal against their convictions.

Malcolm Carroll, 56, also a Greenpeace activist, spoke after director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer said there were concerns about the safety of the convictions obtained following the Drax Power Station protest in North Yorkshire in 2008.

The cases against the 29 protesters who ambushed a freight train carrying coal to the power station used undisclosed information gathered by police officer Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as long-haired drop-out climber Mark "Flash" Stone.

His offer to help the defence led to the collapse last year of the case against six protesters accused of planning to invade the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire, led to the quashing of convictions of 20 more and prompted a review of police undercover tactics.

Mr Carroll, who now lives in Wales, received a community order to carry out 60 hours unpaid work for obstructing the railway.

He said: "There is the civil liberties issue and we are very glad this has been addressed. It is often the way that if you are in an environmental struggle, civil liberties get hurt along the way. I'm glad there is recognition that happened and that action is being taken."

However, he said it was too early to say whether they would appeal.

"We will sit down and talk about whether to go down that road", he added.

"The option of getting a conviction overturned is neither here nor there, for we were all on a train for as long as possible to stop the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. We were very open-eyed about it."

Mr Starmer said he was inviting those convicted after the Drax protest to appeal after a review of the case by a senior CPS lawyer and after taking advice on the safety of the convictions from a senior QC.