The unlikely climate change activist that has single-handedly made the law look an ass

A pensioner was facing two years in jail for holding a placard outside a court. Her worrying case cast a shadow over our system of justice, says Alan Rusbridger

Trudi Warner, a 69-year-old climate change activist, is facing legal proceedings for allegedly holding up a sign in front of jurors (PA)

Trudi Warner is, in many ways, an unlikely rebel. The 69-year-old former child mental health social worker is, in her retirement, a keen organic grower, and last year spent part of the year looking after sheep on the Isle of Eigg.

She is also worried stiff by the threat of climate change, and – after the resounding European Court of Human Rights verdict against the government of Switzerland this week – who’s to say she’s wrong?

Her concern about the climate crisis and how to draw attention to it led to the prospect of being sent to jail. Until today, she was being prosecuted by the attorney general for telling an accepted truth, or, as the authorities would put it, contempt of court. Her crime, if that’s what it is, was to tell the truth in the wrong place – on a pavement outside the Inner London Crown Court.