UK: Environment lawyer fined £5k for contempt in Heathrow case

The Guardian

London, May 10: Environmental lawyer Tim Crosland has been fined £5,000 for criminal contempt of court after deliberately making public a supreme court ruling related to Heathrow airport before the result was officially announced. The judges could have jailed him for two years.

The supreme court had ruled that a planned third runway at Heathrow was legal. The runway is highly controversial, with opponents arguing that the increased carbon dioxide emissions it would cause are incompatible with the UK’s obligations to fight the climate crisis.

In Monday’s contempt hearing, Crosland argued his deliberate breach was a reasonable measure to prevent harm from climate change, but the judges said there was “no such thing as a justifiable contempt of court”. Before the hearing, Crosland had said: “If fighting for my children’s lives makes me a criminal, then so be it”, according to the Guardian.

Crosland, from campaign group Plan B, was one of the parties that brought the legal case against Heathrow’s owners and was therefore given the supreme court’s ruling early. But he made it public on Twitter the day before it was due to be released.

The supreme court ruling overturned an earlier judgment by the court of appeal that the government’s approval of the runway was illegal because ministers had failed to take into account the UK’s commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord, which requires keeping the global temperature rise as close to 1.5C (a 2.7F rise) as possible.

In court on Monday, Crosland accused the government of a cover-up of the consequences of a third runway and said the former transport secretary Chris Grayling “knew Heathrow expansion was inconsistent with” the terms of the Paris agreement.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/10/environment-lawyer-guilty-of-contempt-heathrow-tim-crosland