Drax convictions quashed over undercover officer

The convictions of 29 environmental campaigners were quashed today by the Court of Appeal because of a failure to disclose that an undercover police officer had been part of their protest.

In 2008 the campaigners ambushed a freight train as it took fuel to the Drax power station in Yorkshire, the largest coal-fired power station in Europe.

At Leeds Crown Court in 2009 and 2010 the peaceful protesters were convicted of obstructing engines or carriages on railways, which is an offence under the Malicious Damage Act 1861.

Former undercover officer Mark Kennedy spent seven years posing as Mark "Flash" Stone, and his actions led to the collapse of another case in 2011, which was brought against six protesters accused of planning to invade the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire.

Mr Kennedy's actions led to a police review of undercover tactics, and in 2012 Keir Starmer, the then director of public prosecutions, invited the 29 protesters to appeal their convictions.