No retrial for wrongly acquitted fracking protesters, court rules

Anti-fracking protesters charged with drilling holes in the Parliament House lawns were wrongly acquitted, a court has ruled.

ANTI-FRACKING protesters charged with drilling holes in the Parliament House lawns in 2019 were wrongly acquitted on the basis that prosecutors could not prove the Territory government actually owned the land, a court has ruled.

But in dismissing an appeal against the acquittal, Supreme Court Justice Trevor Riley found no “substantial miscarriage of justice” had resulted from the Local Court’s error.

Conrad Rory and Lauren Mellor had been acquitted of criminal damage after Mr Rory admitted to drilling the holes under the direction of Ms Mellor in protest of the lifting of a moratorium on onshore gas exploration.

Prosecutors appealed the court’s ruling, arguing it was irrelevant who owned the lawn as long as it belonged to someone other than the two defendants and Justice Riley agreed.

“Even if the prosecution had not established that the property belonged to the Northern Territory, it has established beyond reasonable doubt that it did not belong to either of the respondents,” he said. “It belonged to ‘another person’ and the elements of the offence in this regard were satisfied.”

But despite siding with the prosecution, Justice Riley ruled sending the case back to the Local Court for a retrial would be “unduly oppressive”.

Justice Riley said due to the “substantial delay” since the offending and the “unnecessary expense” involved, the appeal should be dismissed.

“In circumstances where the respondents’ actions were motivated by reasonable and sincere beliefs and were intended to be lawful and where the damage done to the lawn was minor with the integrity of the lawn being restored within one hour, no substantial miscarriage of justice occurred,” he said.

“In addition, it seems to me that the offending was at the very low end of seriousness for matters of its kind. In my opinion it would be unduly oppressive to put the respondents to the expense and worry of a further trial.”

Barrister for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mary Chalmers, did not argue against the appeal being dismissed on those grounds.