Unanimous not guilty: All Extinction Rebellion ‘JP Morgan medics’ cleared

A jury has delivered a unanimous not-guilty verdict to the six healthcare professionals from Health for Extinction Rebellion who cracked windows at JP Morgan Chase’s European headquarters during the July 2022 heatwave.

After fewer than four hours of deliberation, all six defendants were acquitted.

The six — two GPs, two consultants and two nurses with more than 130 years of combined NHS service — took action on 17 July 2022 at JP Morgan’s Canary Wharf headquarters. Wearing scrubs and carrying tools marked with words such as “care” and “love”, they cracked eight panes of glass near the entrance before sitting down and waiting to be arrested.

Their action took place during a record-breaking heatwave associated with 3,271 excess deaths in the UK, including 1,256 in the four days surrounding the protest.

The medics said they acted from a professional duty of care, describing the climate crisis as a public health emergency requiring proportionate intervention.

Speaking in her closing statement, Ali Rowe told the jury:

“Medicine is not about blind rule-following. Every good clinician… knows there are moments when rules must be broken to prevent serious harm. Ethics teaching recognises this: sometimes you violate a lesser rule to uphold a deeper duty of care.”

The prosecution argued that the case was simply about criminal damage and that breaking the glass had no impact on climate change. The defendants did not dispute that they took part in the action, but denied criminal damage on the basis that their actions were necessary and proportionate in the context of escalating harm.

In her closing remarks, Dr Juliette Brown began by thanking the members of the jury. Describing the court experience as having “an anesthetising effect,” she went on to explain:

“I feel quite numb at times, and disempowered and I find myself searching for the humanity here.

The one redeeming feature for me is the jury who bring humanity into this system. It’s been described as the moral sense of the people. You are the ones who bring reality into these rooms, who can see the bigger picture, the real world beyond what feels to me like the rather blunt instrument of the law.”

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, despite being given no formal legal route to acquit.

Supporters in the public gallery described seeing looks of relief and joy on the faces of the jurors after the verdict was announced.

Why JP Morgan?

JP Morgan Chase was targeted as it is the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels. Between 2015, when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed, and 2022, the bank provided $384.2 billion to the fossil fuel sector. In 2021 alone, it financed fossil fuels to the tune of $61.7 billion — the same year the International Energy Agency stated that no new oil, gas or coal development can proceed if global heating is to be limited to 1.5°C.

In 2020, a leaked JP Morgan report warned that the planet is on an “unsustainable trajectory” and that “something has to change if the human race is going to survive”.

JP Morgan entered the UK domestic retail banking sector in September 2021 by launching its digital-only bank under the Chase UK brand. Last year they revealed plans to build a 3m sq ft tower in Canary Wharf hours after they were spared increased taxes in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget. Just last month it was announced that Chase Bank also entered the UK insurance market.

The defendants argued that continued fossil fuel expansion has direct and foreseeable impacts on health, including heat-related illness, respiratory disease and preventable deaths.

Protest and the wider context

This was the second trial of the six medics, after an earlier jury failed to reach a verdict.

Since the original action in 2022, protest law in the UK has changed significantly, effectively removing all legal defences available to climate activists in court.

Throughout the trial, the defendants emphasised that they took steps to minimise risk and avoid harm, framing their action as a symbolic intervention intended to “sound the alarm” on the health impacts of the climate emergency.

The unanimous acquittal marks a notable outcome in a shifting legal landscape for protest in the UK.

TELL THE TRUTH

Last year, Health for Extinction Rebellion performed a Climate and Health ‘press conference’ outside Parliament, demonstrating how the government needs to acknowledge the urgency of the climate and health crises and announce crucial new policies to address these.

MOST IMPORTANTLY

Thank you as always to our medics and healthcare workers. We owe you so, so much.

With LOVE and RAGE

Notes:

Health for Extinction Rebellion (previously Doctors for XR) is a collective of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who recognise their professional responsibility to demand and support appropriate, proportionate and urgent action to protect their patients and the public from the escalating health harms of the climate and ecological emergency.

Further reading:

Article by the British Medical Association