The defendants are charged in relation to a protest on the M57 on April 15 last year ahead of the Grand National race
A police officer tasked with removing a group of anti- Grand National protesters who glued themselves to the M57 said "it’s difficult to think of anything more unsafe", a court heard.
Once the minibus stopped, on a live lane because there was no hard shoulder, eight people ran from the vehicle and entered the M57 northbound, Mr Jones said. The court heard one person was immediately arrested by a police officer, but seven others "ran towards the middle lane and glued themselves to the road and to each other".
Mr Jones told the court: "This was a wilful obstruction as part of a wider protest. It is anticipated that the issue in this case will be when a defendant’s rights under article 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights are engaged in a criminal trial. It is for the prosecution to satisfy the court to the criminal standard of sure that a conviction would be a proportionate interference with these rights.
"Step four is a final appeal, is there anything I can reasonably say to make them remove themselves and step five is action, where a specialist team would use physical force to unstick them." Sgt Kennedy told the court it took "two to two-and-a-half hours" to remove the defendants safely from the motorway.
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