The Crown’s case against Judith Sambrook – for refusing to complete the 2011 Census – was formally dismissed at Shrewsbury Magistrates Court yesterday morning.
This is the first not guilty verdict we’re aware of in relation to 2011 census refusers.
The best part of this story is that the CPS tried to drop the case against Judith discreetly but – having none of it – Judith revived the case herself. She was forcing their hand, saying they had to produce any evidence against her.
The hearing itself was over in a matter of minutes and the case dismissed when Andrew Warman of the CPS offered no evidence against her. Andrew Warman for the CPS offered no evidence against her.
Progress of other cases
Only a small percentage of those who refused to complete their 2011 census forms in England and Wales were prosecuted. When the CPS has dropped prosecutions, they haven’t been forthcoming with reasons why, which just makes their decision to continue with other cases look even more disorganised, unfair and uneven.
As mentioned in our last blog post, John Marjoram’s case was dropped because the CPS suddenly decided there was “not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction” – even though there was the same amount of evidence as when it confidently initiated brought the prosecution.
John Voysey’s case, which was briefly linked with John Marjoram’s to be dealt with jointly, was also dropped after John M’s case was discontinued.
Other cases are still continuing, and only this week Deborah Glass Woodin of Oxford was found guilty of the same offence at Reading Magistrates Court. See our page on the ongoing court process for more info.
Info taken from our sources and the Indymedia article Shrewsbury: Case against Census refuser dismissed
