Three activists were in court today charged with contravening a Royal Parks Bylaw, the maximum punishment for which is a £200 fine.

Several of their co-defendants decided to accept a caution for the offence - therefore admitting guilt and getting criminal records for the "crime". Their reasons for accepting the cautions were that they couldn't be bothered with the hassle of court, they thought they would be found guilty anyway, and they didn't want to have to pay the prosecutions costs for the court case.

The activists had been refused legal aid so the three who didn't accept a caution were forced to represent themselves. They were not confident about their defence and were braced for a farcical case, with an infuriated judge, and a guilty verdict with large costs awarded against them.

They spent several days preparing a dodgy defence claiming they were wrongfully arrested, the law was misused, and the old desperate activist favourite defence - necessity.

After some arguments with the judge about why the defendants didn't live anywhere the prosecution announced that the police officers who were due to give evidence in the case had not turned up and asked if he would be allowed half an hour to track them down.

The judge gave the prosecution fifteen minutes to get his witnesses to the court and the activists daring to hope the case would be postponed.

After fifteen minutes when the court resumed the prosecution barrister announced that the police witnesses wouldn't be able to attend until 2pm! The judge was not impressed. Stating that if the defendants hadn't turned up the case would have gone ahead without them and so to be fair to both sides the case must also go ahead if the prosecution doesn't turn up.

The prosecution then said that therefore he couldn't offer any evidence and the defendants would have to be found not guilty!

The judge then awarded the defendants the costs of their train tickets to the trial, not even requesting receipts and even awarding the defendants the costs of their previous trips to court, even though they couldn’t remember how much they had cost and had no receipts for them!

So the moral of the story is NEVER PLEAD GUILTY and NEVER ACCEPT A CAUTION!

The police and CPS are so incompetent that they are very likely to mess up the easiest of cases where you are obviously guilty.

One of the defendants in this case has been arrested five times, charged four times, made appearances in court for three charges and still has no convictions.