Executive coach Zoe Cohen is one of seven climate activists found guilty in December of criminal damage.
The defendants, Rosemary Annie Webster, Cazzie Wood, Gabby Ditton, Lucy Porter, Niki Stickells, Sophie Cowen and Cohen were charged in Southwark Crown Court in London with just under £100k worth of criminal damage at Barclays HQ in Canary Wharf in April 2021.
The activists said they broke the glass windows to raise the alarm about the climate crisis. They argued during the trial that Barclays staff would have consented to the damage if they were fully informed about the climate crisis. Cohen said she believed she’d run out of options to achieve change and that the repair costs were insignificant for the bank which spent £100m on refurbishments in 2021.
Barclays has been the target of a number of protests from climate change campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR), in a bid to highlight the bank’s investment in fossil fuels.
Sentencing of Cohen and fellow defendants is due to take place on 27 January, with a maximum penalty of up to 18 months in prison. This is the eighth case to be heard before a jury. Of the eight XR jury trials that have taken place to date, three have resulted in a not guilty verdict. There are currently 27 climate activists in prison in the UK.
Cohen said: “The inability of juries to consider ‘Necessity’ as a defence – that our actions were necessary to prevent greater harm – in cases like ours is beyond madness. It looks like 2022 will be the UK’s hottest year ever, 30 million people in Pakistan have been displaced by exterme floods, and Europe remains in its worst drought for 500 years. I remain more terrified of climate and societal breakdown than I do of the consequences of this verdict…Unless many more ordinary women, and men, step up into peaceful civil disobedience, we and our children will die of obedience.”