West Berkshire Green Party councillor's trial over HS2 protest dismissed

THE trial of a West Berkshire councillor following his eviction from Jones’ Hill Wood in Buckinghamshire at an HS2 protest has been dismissed.

However Steve Masters (Green, Speen) still faces two other charges for lock-on protests that will come to court later this summer.

Mr Masters and other environmentalists had been charged with aggravated trespass after staging a protest near the M25 in Buckinghamshire, where a 10-mile tunnel for the high-speed rail line will be dug under the Chiltern Hills.

The campaigners had been evicted by police officers from the last treehouse on October 8 in a battle dubbed ‘The Battle of the Bean Can Treehouse,’ and charged with aggravated trespass for not leaving the wood when asked.

In the trial last Thursday, the case was dismissed after prosecution submitted no evidence to the court.

Mr Masters said the police hadn’t had the correct authority to evict the group.

He said: “Their case was very weak, which was why they put up no evidence on the day – although they could’ve done that beforehand.

“We knew they didn’t have the correct authority to evict us.

“It’s great that I’ve not ended up with a criminal record, but that’s kind of the point – you want to be in the system and raising the issues.

“It was a little bit disappointing that I didn’t get to have my 10 minutes in court and explain to the judge and the wider public what’s actually going on.

“We also wanted to highlight the fact that we’ve proven that HS2 didn’t have the correct bat licences [to chop down the affected woodland].

“Our occupation of the wood was justified to prevent a greater crime of the destruction of a rare Barbastelle bat colony.”

That license has now been granted by Natural England and work began a few weeks ago on the tunnel.

Mr Masters now faces two trials in July and August for “lock-on” protests – one last August on the A413 Wendover bypass, and last September when he and others blocked the entrance to the site where construction has begun on the tunnel.

He was charged under Section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which makes it an offence to “beset” a place of work.

He remains on bail for those charges.

Construction work officially began in September on HS2, which is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.