In this week’s NLJ, Neil Parpworth, of Leicester De Montfort Law School, looks at the Greta Thunberg case, and her subsequent acquittal, through the lens of public order legislation
Swedish activist Thunberg recently pleaded not guilty to a public order offence in connection with a protest outside an oil industry conference at a hotel on London’s Park Lane.
Parpworth uses Thunberg’s case to explain, and assess the impact of, recent changes to policing powers and the right to peaceful assembly. Who defines what amounts to ‘serious disruption to the life of the community’, and are the courts being sufficiently robust with regard to decisions by the police?
The author writes: ‘A protestor must know exactly what it is they must do, or refrain from doing, for it to be fair and just for them to be penalised for breaching a condition.’
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