Judge reserves decision on fracking protesters’ criminal damage at Parliament House case
A DECISION will be handed down next month following the hearing of two anti-fracking activists who pleaded not guilty to criminal damage after drilling holes in the lawns of Parliament House
Police & Courts
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- Anti-fracking protesters to take on government in court battle
- Protesters who drilled holes in Parliament lawns had ‘exhausted all other options’, court hears
A DECISION will be handed down next month following the hearing of two anti-fracking activists who pleaded not guilty to criminal damage after drilling holes in the lawns of Parliament House as a part of a protest last year.
The two defendants – Conrad Rory, 34, and Lauren Mellor, 36, – appeared in the Darwin Local Court yesterday for the second day of a two-day hearing after the “mock fracking operation”, which saw them drill three holes in the NT parliament lawns with a bobcat on the morning of April 16 last year.
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The pair pleaded not guilty to the joint charge of criminal damage on the basis that they acted in defence of their land and water from potential destruction by fracking and with the defence of a “sudden or extraordinary emergency” in relation to fracking’s potential impact on climate change.
During his closing address, prosecutor Ian Rowbottam said the alleged criminal damage was not a “reasonable response” to what they saw as the threat fracking posed.
“This isn’t a case, in my submission, about political freedoms or the like,” he said.
“I have absolutely no problems in a protest, the more the better.
“What the court is to consider is, is this type of protest, by the people who would boycott the institution of our democracy, a protest that is going to be ignored by the criminal law?”
However, Rory and Mellor’s defence lawyer John Lawrence SC said his clients didn’t intend to cause criminal damage and felt they had “exhausted all other options” before committing the alleged offending.
“Their real intention was not associated with or attached to damaging,” Mr Lawrence said.
“Their actions were to send a message to the government. They did it in a clever way, they did it in a theatrical way.”
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He said both defendants had been fighting the cause for several years and had taken a number of actions including submitting their concerns to the Pepper Inquiry, speaking one-on-one with Justice Rachel Pepper and attempting to meet with Chief Minister Michael Gunner with no success.
Saying the case raised “not only important issues but complex issues,” Judge John Neill reserved his decision to be handed down on November 10.
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