The Stansted 15 may have avoided prison but the whole country should be worried when protest becomes a criminal act

The misuse of obscure legislation, excessive charges and draconian sentencing is a growing trend in the state’s handling of non-violent protest

After a year and a half on bail, nine weeks on trial and five hours of sentencing, the case of the Stansted 15 – activists who cut through a fence at Stansted airport and chained themselves to a plane due to deport 60 people to Ghana and Nigeria in 2017 – has reached its conclusion.

On Wednesday at Chelmsford Crown Court, the protesters were spared immediate jail time: three people were handed suspended sentences, while the other 12 defendants must complete 100 hours of community service. All had come to court with bags packed, prepared for a long stretch in prison. The result from Judge Morgan was significantly less severe than anticipated, and was greeted by friends and family of the defendants with absolute elation.

Yet while the Stansted 15 enjoy this first unexpected day on the outside, serious questions remain over the Crown Prosecution Service’s handling of their case. Rather than being convicted of aggravated trespass, as other protesters who committed similar offences had been in 2016, the Stansted 15 had an initial trespass charge changed four months into their bail to a charge of “endangering safety at aerodromes” – a scheduled terrorist offence, which potentially carries a life sentence.

This particular bit of legislation – from the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990, if anyone’s interested – was brought in after the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. Its application in a protest case is completely unprecedented in English courts. You might not agree with the actions of the Stansted 15, but this punitive and misguided use of legislation to criminalise protesters should have you worried regardless.

I spoke to one of the 15 who told me of the disconnect between how the arresting officers treated the activists and how the CPS chose to proceed with charges. “It was clear to the police that we were there to protest – we were all chanting, and wearing pink hats. We thought that we’d just be held for a bit and then charged with trespass – then four months later we’re being treated like terrorists.”

Every defendant I spoke to talked about the personal toll the case had taken on them: one activist, Emma Hughes, faced the possibility of being separated from her newborn son. Even though the protesters have avoided custodial sentences, the presence of a terrorist offence on their criminal records will have consequences for their employment prospects and ability to travel.

The effects of 18 months of uncertainty on mental health are acute. Just because a person isn’t in prison, it doesn’t mean they’re free.

The Stansted 15 are not alone in being hounded by the criminal justice system in this way. Alfie Meadows, a student protester who suffered brain injuries after being allegedly hit with a police baton at an anti-tuition fees protest in 2010, was subsequently prosecuted for violent disorder. An investigation into the Metropolitan Police’s actions was put on hold so he could be charged with a criminal offence. He was later found not guilty.

Last year three anti-fracking protesters had their prison sentences overturned by the Court of Appeal, after it was found the judge who had handed down the “manifestly excessive” sentences had family connections to the oil and gas industries.

And only this week, seven protesters from Sheffield who were arrested under a forgotten bit of trade union law won a payout of £24,300 from South Yorkshire Police after the Independent Office for Police Conduct found the legislation had been improperly invoked. The misuse of obscure legislation, excessive charges and draconian sentencing is a growing trend in the state’s handling of non-violent protest – and this is a cause for concern for everyone in this country.

We tend to imagine that protest is simply a matter of marching where the police have told you to go, doing a bit of chanting and then going home. However, a basic fact of British history is that citizens mobilising collectively – from the chartists and the suffragettes, to the anti-apartheid movement and those who organised against the poll tax – have broken the law in order to achieve their political goals. The test of a functioning democracy is whether or not the state, when confronted by non-violent direct action, is able to uphold the law while simultaneously protecting Article 10 and 11 rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

Prosecution should never be malicious, nor punishment so disproportionate as to discourage the act of protest itself. The use of counterterrorism legislation to prosecute the Stansted 15 is an outrageous affront to these democratic values.