Climate protester Dr Diana Warner, 65, was walking down the line outside Drax power station, in North Yorkshire, wearing orange high-visibility clothing and waving an orange flag when a 400-metre long empty freight train stopped on December 14, 2021, Leeds Crown Court has heard.
After it was sent out to consider its verdict on Tuesday afternoon, a jury of seven men and five women came back into court with a note for Judge Guy Kearl KC, the Recorder of Leeds, which said: “As a matter of conscience we are finding it difficult to come to a verdict.
Warner said that she believed the publicity she received from skipping court and stopping the train in North Yorkshire instead, would highlight her campaigning on the climate emergency.
Judge Kearl told the jurors that they should not decide a case based on conscience, telling them they should come to a verdict based on applying the law, as directed by him, to the facts of the case, decided by them.
The court was played a video of Warner filmed beside the stationary train in which she explains why she believed Drax is the “most ridiculous power station on earth”.
