Press conference following Stuart Christie's acquittal, Time Out office (1972)

Press conference following Stuart Christie's acquittal, Time Out office (1972)

Stuart Christie (2011): 'Time Out Offices (Kings Cross). Acquitted after the then longest 'criminal' trial of the twentieth century (109 days), the so-called 'Angry Brigade' trial. In the picture are left to right at the table: Kate McLean, Angela Weir, SC, and Brenda Earl; standing, l/r is an Evening Standard journalist (forgotten his name), Chris Broad (owner of 29 Grosvenor Avenue, a Women's Liberation/ agitprop house which the police claimed was the hub of the 'conspiracy'), beside him the wonderful Ben Birnberg, my solicitor, and Jeni Styring, his articled clerk. Those who weren't so lucky — John Barker, Hilary Creek, Jim Greenfield and Anna Mendlessohn (now sadly deceased) were each sentenced to 10 years. In an earlier trial Ian Purdie was acquitted and Jake Prescott (now also deceased) was sentenced to 15 years (reduced to ten after our trial) That same evening, Bond and his bespectacled acolyte Habershon held a forty-minute press conference at Scotland Yard. One observer aptly described it as ‘the police equivalent of standing on the corpse’ — a public relations operation to justify all their illegal and questionable actions prior to the trial and to seek a public ‘mandate’ for the stepping up of their onslaught on civil liberties. Tony Smythe, General Secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), described their aim as an attempt ‘to exploit the aftermath of the trial in a way likely to encourage unnecessary public alarm.’ Crime reporters from the national press were welcomed as long-lost friends. The affection with which DS Habershon greeted Daily Mirror crime hack Tom Tullet was cringe-making. ‘Good to see you, Tom,’ said Habershon, vigorously pumping his hand and smiling. No thoughtful, in-depth pieces from the Daily Mirror then. Bond and Habershon named two more people they wanted to interview in connection with Angry Brigade bombings while we were inside: Gerry Osner and Sarah Poulikakou, both of whom were living abroad at the time. In spite of the jury’s verdicts, Habershon and Bond remained adamant that everyone who had stood in the dock was guilty. As evil Sheriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s classic western, Unforgiven, says of another of his many innocent victims — ‘Innocent of what?’ In reply to a protest by one of the journalists, Bond said: ‘How do we know that the eight did not do it?’ He made various unflattering comments about the eight of us as a whole, and a pointed reference about me in particular: ‘The evidence presented during the trial showed quite clearly the defendant’s international links. The explosives came from France and Christie had contacts there and in Spain ... Christie has admitted being an anarchist.’ Someone interjected: ‘But that is not the same as being a member of the Angry Brigade.’ Bond answered, ‘What’s the difference?’ As far as he was concerned, all the eight people charged were militant members of the Angry Brigade, including me. And in a way he was right. The construction the judge had put on conspiracy meant that everyone was guilty. A.T. Sandrock, a Daily Telegraph crime correspondent immediately suggested the remark should be off the record. ‘I am sure we can’t quote you on that, Ernie!’ Bond took the hint and agreed. But for the rest of his life Bond continued to make similar comments and harboured a deep resentment towards us. Interviewed in 2002 by Martin Bright of The Observer he recalled: ‘They were a cunning lot, the Angry Brigade, well wrapped up in that anarchist movement. They were belligerent and very “anti” and there was no sense that they were sorry for what they had done. Right from the start there were allegations that we’d planted this and planted that. It was the most disgraceful trial I’ve ever seen in my experience.’ Methinks Ernie protested too much! There was no victory for either side, and no defeat either. The only victory was for the jury system itself. The jury had carried the day by showing that trials are about justice as well as law. By rejecting much of the prosecution case the jury had shown that the conduct of Bond and Habershon’s officers had left something to be desired. The judges and the politico-legal establishment were appalled at just how close all of us in the dock had come to being acquitted — in their view, in defiance of the law and in blatant disregard of the evidence. That would have been disastrous. The jury — as John Barker described it, ‘the critically intelligent citizenry in action’ — had responded positively by acquitting half of us, and asking for clemency for the remaining four. Our trial also put getting rid of juries altogether firmly on the state’s agenda The Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, ordered an immediate post-trial inquiry — which took place between 14 December 1972 and 17 January 1973 — to ‘learn the lessons of the case and to prevent a similar outcome arising in future,’ particularly with regard to jury selection (Public Records Office PREM15/1735). It was another governmental nail in the coffin of the jury system. Never again would defendants be allowed to choose a jury of their peers. Also thereafter, most major trials of a political nature were held outside London, in places such as the commuter belt of Winchester, where the Crown could be reasonably certain of a comfortably middle-class jury list to ensure the conviction of the enemies of the state. Winchester Crown Court happens to be the only Crown Court in England where the majority of the population is employed by the Ministry of Defence. The most famous example being the 1973 trial of the Winchester Eight — Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and four others. The eight IRA members were sentenced to life imprisonment, plus twenty years, for the Old Bailey and Great Scotland Yard Police Station bombings in Whitehall in March 1973. One person died and around 200 were injured in the Old Bailey blast. The last trial in Winchester that I recall was that of three IRA members charged in 1988 with the attempted murder of Tom King, the then Minister of Defence.'

10 December, 1972