TWO Kendal protesters could face a prison sentence after they were found guilty of causing a public nuisance.

A group of Insulate Britain supporters were convicted by a crown court jury on Friday in the sixth jury trial relating to Insulate Britain’s campaign of civil resistance last year undertaken to demand the UK government insulates Britain’s cold and leaky homes.

Daphne Jackson, 72, an osteopath and psychotherapist from Sedbergh and Beatrice Pooley, 65, an English teacher from Kendal were on trial with Reverend Mark Coleman, 63, a retired vicar from Rochdale and Stephanie Aylett, 28, a medical sales rep from St Albans.

They were found guilty of causing a public nuisance in relation to the Insulate Britain roadblock at Bishopsgate in the City of London on October 25, 2021.

One other trial relating to the same roadblock has already taken place in which the three defendants, including Daphne Jackson’s daughter Gwen Harrison, were acquitted. After a five-day hearing, the 11-person jury took one and a half hours to deliberate before returning a unanimous guilty verdict.

The four will appear again for sentencing on March 24 and they have 28 days to appeal the conviction. The maximum penalty for the common law offence of public nuisance is life imprisonment.

The trial started with Judge Silas Reid ruling that the four defendants could not refer to their motivations for blocking the junction in their defence. As with the earlier Insulate Britain jury trials, the defendants were each barred from referring to the climate crisis, insulation or fuel poverty during the trial.

An additional restriction imposed in this trial compared with previous trials was on any mention of the 1960s civil rights activists, the Freedom Riders, on which Insulate Britain’s strategy was based.

Beatrice Pooley said: “The judge had ruled that we could not give evidence as to our motivation for acting in the way that we did. Nor could we talk about any aspect of the climate and ecological emergency facing us all. Therefore I’m not surprised that we have been found guilty.”

Daphne Jackson said: “This is a battle not the war, and for the sake of a liveable climate we have to win the war. Judge Reid prevented us from speaking our truth, but to quote Gandhi, 'first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. It seems the fight is on!'.

In the five previous Insulate Britain jury trials for public nuisance charges, two trials so far have resulted in acquittals, one has resulted in a guilty verdict and two have been deferred.

The first Insulate Britain jury trial was deferred until June 2023 after the Judge dismissed the jury and asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider whether proceeding with the trial was in the public interest.

CPS has chosen to summon a total of 56 supporters to answer at least 201 charges of Public Nuisance across at least 51 jury trials the last of which is scheduled to begin on December 4.