The defendant has basically been banned from explaining his motivation - i.e offering a defense.
The thing about UK trial by jury is that a jury can acquit for any reason - they could, for instance decide that they agree with the motivation for the protest.
Coming to a courtroom near you - people being found guilty but without being told of what. Kafka is alive and well in British jurisprudence.
Indeed - and when they hear climate protesters actually put the case, they generally do acquit. Which is of course precisely why some judges - useful Tory idiots - facilitators of fascism - are now bending the law to stop them speaking.
and some people on SF have to ask why we prefer to live in France 
Because that’s not what the closing speech is for.
Each party has put its evidence before the court and the other side has challenged it. What evidence either side is permitted to put is governed by the Rules of Evidence. All the way through, the Judge ensures fairness by excluding evidence which is inadmissible. All of these decisions are appealable.
At the end of the case, each side summarises its case in its closing speech: that is, it sums up the evidence it has brought. It would be fundamentally unfair (because by that case, in English law, the prosecution and defence have each had their opportunity to have their say) to introduce further evidence, which is what David Nixon decided to do.
But there’s a deeper problem revealed by those who are calling the judge a “fascist”, a “useful Tory idiot” or a “facilitator of fascism”.
That’s exactly the sort of thing that so outraged reasonable people when the Daily Mail called judges “enemies of the people”. A decision didn’t go the Mail’s way, so they attacked the judiciary.
Calling judges fascists, or enemies of the people, when you don’t like their decision, does indeed lead to fascism, and we should be very careful about going down that road.
And another thought.
Sabotaging a trial like that is likely to lead (subject to the Prosecution submissions) to the jury being discharged and a new one empannelled - and the consequent cost. The Judge in this case seems to have skilfully avoided that.
A judge has to guide a trial through a laid down set of rules decided by others so if a defendant decides to ignore that the judge has no choice other than to put him/her in contempt with the obvious consequences of a possible prison sentence. The fact that the defendant admitted contempt shows that he knew exactly what he was doing as it got instant media interest which after all is what he and other climate activists want.
The bigger question is - if this deemed as an example of ‘fascism’ where does it come from, the judge’s interpretation or the set of rules themselves?
The ‘contempt’ issue is besides the point Tim - the issue is ‘mens rea’ - the judge curtailed a long established right in common law and natural justice - just as many other democratic and human rights are being undermined in the UK at present.
It really is eerily reminiscent of what went on in Europe during the rise of fascism.
Now we have the Tory vice-chair not only advocating the death penalty, but saying murderers should be executed ‘the same week’ - which can only mean without a trial at all.
Cripes I missed that.
I hesitate to apply common sense, but they are not “murderers” until found guilty so presumably means the same week as the verdict, that we have the Tory Party chair even voicing the idea is very worrying.
That’s almost like a report from a sensationalist reporter in the Daily Mail 
I’m sorry, Geof, but you’ve been led astray by Richard Murphy (who wrote that essay).
He is an accountant, not a lawyer.
As I explained above, the defendant has, during the evidence-adducing part of the trial, an opportunity to deal with what he did (actus reus) and his state of mind (mens rea).
His speech is for a different purpose and he is not allowed to introduce evidence there, because of the reasons outlined above.
His exact words were:
"If they have videoed it and are on camera – like the Lee Rigby killers - I mean: they should have gone, same week.”
Just as hard to believe as a Daily Mail story I know - but he did say it - and @billybutcher it does sound to me like advocating summary execution - if there is a video - not waiting for trial and verdict.
your point being…
I would have thought that was obvious but it’s the usual story - turn a blind eye to some dubious things that happen in France because they don’t fit the narrative of France good UK bad. I’m pretty sure that if this story was about two Met officers grilling a young woman because she had confronted Sunak there would have been apoplexy on this forum.
grow up
Is that the best you can do?
I don’t respond to trolls.
I hadn’t heard about that. @plod, though I see it dates back to last June. Certainly seems heavy-handed.
It was a while ago but it shows that fairly nasty things happen everywhere. Was there not talk of using legislation to force refinery workers to work when they where on strike? Sadly, the UK government thinks it’s ok to outlaw strikes in some circumstances.
Finally, a bit off topic and might have been mentioned elsewhere but why is Macron delaying depriving Putin of his Légion d’Honneur?