Activists halt a train heading to Drax power station. Photograph: Martin Wainwright
Climate protesters who hijacked a coal train on its way to Drax power station in June 2008 are expected to be sentenced today at 4.30pm. The 22 men and women, including a senior university lecturer, teachers and film-makers, were convicted in July of obstructing an engine or carriage using a railway. The judge has already ruled out prison and they are likely to receive heavy community service sentences.
Their hopes of repeating the "Kingsnorth Six" judgment last September, when activists who defaced a power station chimney were acquitted by a Kent jury, were dashed by a judge in July, who refused to admit arguments that the hijack was "necessary and proportionate to prevent the greater crime of carbon pollution".
At the end of the July trial, chief crown prosecutor North Yorkshire, Rob Turnbull, said: "This was not a peaceful demonstration about the environment, but a well planned and executed crime where two defendants impersonated railway employees and went onto the trackside to stop a train lawfully delivering coal to the power station."
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