Hello everyone,
Some great news to share – census refuser Jane Howarth had her court case dismissed last week after the judge declared that her court summons should have been for refusing to fill in the census, as required by law, rather than for refusing to answer a census officer’s questions, which Jane did in fact answer.
We’ll have more information later, but for now we’re reprinting an email from Jane to the Noconsensus group, which puts across the intricacies of the decision, as well as Jane’s euphoria at the outcome:
I won on the fact that I was being summoned for not answering questions to a census officer but it was proven that [the] question I was asked I answered. The Judge said “that the summons should [have] been for refusing to fill in the census required by law” but the CPS and ONS had passed the time to summons me for that as a refusal was reported from my first visit, so by the time they issued a summons it could not be for this offence as the [allotted window] had elapsed. Even though it was reported I refused to fill in the census in August, that was deemed an answer to a question which had already been recorded back in April… Funny that the last minute skullduggery by the [Crown Prosecution Service] of the summons actually sealed their fate today.
