Skeptic Project

The trial of six people accused of trying to shut down one of Britain's biggest power stations has collapsed amid claims an undercover policeman offered to give evidence in their defence.

The campaigners were charged with conspiring to shut down the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire last year.

Their case was due to be heard today, but was abandoned after the officer apparently contacted the defence team to say he would be prepared to help.

The undercover officer involved has been named as Pc Mark Kennedy, a former member of the Metropolitan Police who has spent the past seven years undercover in the environmental protest movement.

He is said to have recently resigned from the force and moved abroad.

Some activists have claimed that his role went beyond that of a police observer and that he helped fund the protest and planned to take on a main role in disrupting the power station.

The protesters planned to trespass at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station and shut it down for a week, a trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Pc Kennedy, 40, had infiltrated the environmental protest movement in 2000 and spent the past seven years at its heart.

Known as a 'freelance climber' called Mark Stone, he travelled to 22 different countries gleaning information and playing a frontline role in some of the most high-profile protests.

But he has now apparently quit the Metropolitan Police.

According to the Guardian, Mr Kennedy told an activist that his infiltration had been 'really wrong'.

'I'll just say I'm sorry, for everything,' he is reported to have said. 'It really hurts.'

Undercover spies such as Mr Kennedy are believed to cost around £250,000 a year to fund.

Danny Chivers, who was one of the six defendants in the failed case, told the BBC that Mr Kennedy was not just an observer, but an agent provocateur.

'We're not talking about someone sitting at the back of the meeting taking notes - he was in the thick of it.'

Speaking about the Ratcliffe-on-Soar protest, Mr Chivers said: 'Mark Stone was involved in organising this for months - they could have stopped it at the start.'

Based as a 'green protester' in Nottingham, he would disappear for months, saying he had to visit a brother in the U.S.

But in October last year he was confronted by some of the activists after they found documents revealing his true identity.

Today, however, the Crown Prosecution Service denied that the collapse of the trial was due to the existence of an undercover officer.

In a statement the CPS said: 'Previously unavailable information that significantly undermined the prosecution's case came to light on Wednesday, 5 January 2011.

'In light of this information, the Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the case and decided there was no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.

'There will be a hearing (today) at which we will offer no evidence, thereby discontinuing the case.'

At Nottingham Crown Court today, no reasons were given for the case's collapse.

Prosecutor Felicity Gerry told Judge John Milmo the Crown invited him to return not guilty verdicts for Simon Lewis, Daniel Chivers, Brody Stevens, Spencer Pawling, Oliver Knowles and Anthony Mullen.

She said: 'This matter is listed for trial today but the court was notified on Friday that the Crown undertook a review of this case on Wednesday last week.

'As a consequence of that review, which involved myself, police and a CPS reviewing lawyer, the Crown offers no evidence against all six defendants.'

Judge Milmo formally cancelled bail for the defendants, who all sat in the jury box rather than the dock, and ordered defence costs to be paid.

Hundreds of activists were arrested when police raided the Iona School in Sneinton, Nottingham, on the morning of Easter Monday, April 13, last year.

The protesters planned to trespass at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station and shut it down for a week, a trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Mike Schwarz, a solicitor at the Bindmans law firm who represented the protesters, said: 'I have no doubt that our attempts to get disclosure about Kennedy's role has led to the collapse of the trial.

'It is no coincidence that, just 48 hours after we told the CPS our clients could not receive a fair trial unless they disclosed material about Kennedy, they halted the prosecution.

'Given that Kennedy was, until recently, willing to assist the defence, one has to ask if the police were facing up to the possibility their undercover agent had turned native.'

Earlier this month 20 protesters were sentenced to a mixture of community orders and conditional discharges after they were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe.

The Met Police said it was 'not prepared to discuss' Mr Kennedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345707/Undercover-policeman-Mark-Kennedy-Case-collapses-offers-evidence-defence.html