Janet Devers ... The Metric Martyr

A true British Patriot

The case of East End market trader Janet Devers (64) was widely reported in Britain's press and on the TV and radio this week.

Quite rightly the British public were incensed that just a matter of days after last September’s front page banner headlines of European Commission's Vice President Gunther Verheugen statement that it was never the intention of the EU to ban imperial measures and that 'Pounds and Ounces are saved,' that Janet Devers had two sets of imperial scales seized and another 11 'weights and measures' charges laid against her by the London Borough of Hackney.

Hackney Trading Standards Officers Russell Fielding
and Audrey Lee seize Janet’s scales

On Wednesday 8th October 2008 at Thames Magistrates Court Bow Road Janet Devers received her verdict from the bench of three lay magistrates.

However, in what has become the most bizarre and farcical of cases Janet was originally brought before Thames Magistrates back in January of this year to face charges brought by Hackney Council that she sold goods in imperial measures, used imperial scales and one of the 9 charges "sold 7 peppers in a bowl for a £1.00" without telling the customer the number of peppers the bowl contained. That is a criminal offence but it isn't a crime for a supermarket to sell a single pepper for 79p!

As stock markets go into meltdown around the world with billions wiped off share values we are experiencing the most perverse of situations where councils see fit to spend tens of thousands of pounds of public money in such actions when there had never been a single complaint from a member of the public.

However, originally Janet was offered, and had elected to face trial by jury as the court and the council had agreed that the cases could be heard at Crown Court but in a bizarre twist the Judge at the pre-trial hearing stated that she could not hear 9 of the charges because they were summary only and had to be referred back to Magistrates.

The Magistrates and the Court Clerk had initially made the mistake of thinking that the matters were triable ‘either way’ ie. by a jury or magistrates. Janet had exercised that right and elected for trial by jury.

Now she had TWO court cases and TWO sets of costs.

So, Thursday saw Janet back in court for the SIXTH time to hear her fate on 9 of the 13 charges after evidence was heard on September 23rd (Janet's 40th wedding anniversary) before a lay bench.

Janet had decided to handle the case herself with former market trader Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund as a McKenzie Friend. She felt it more appropriate that the two market traders handled the case informally rather than a formal challenge using the lawyers in order to appeal to the Magistrates on a common sense and justice perspective.

In a full days hearing doubts were cast over Hackney's evidence and the Trading Standards Officers were forced to admit that some of the photographs they had introduced as evidence were taken of the wrong stall and Infringement Notices had been handed to someone on a different stall!

'Beyond reasonable doubt' and 'reasonableness' were phrases used by the Court Clerk towards the three lay Magistrates yet they came back with their stinging verdict and found Janet guilty on 8 of the 9 charges despite the inconsistencies and errors in Hackney's evidence.

Janet was given a conditional discharge on all of the charges but ordered to pay Hackney's costs of just short of £5,000. Stunned and tearful she asked the Magistrates to consider the fact that she could not afford such an amount and that to be charged £68 per hour (equates to an annual salary of + £140,000) for Trading Standards Officers time seemed excessive. The Magistrates allowed her the luxury of paying the costs at the rate of £400 per month.

Scapegoat or another agenda

Janet said outside the Court:

" In this current economic and political climate you have to ask whether it is in the public interest to be spending thousands of pounds of public money trying to convict me, an ordinary hard-working market trader of effectively offering good value and trying to earn a basic living.
I am doing nothing different to what tens of thousands of other traders across the country are doing and if I am a criminal then the courts will be filled but I think I have been made a scapegoat. My brother was one of the original Metric Martyrs and this council have continued to target the family ever since."

A website Open Dalston also believes that there is another agenda behind Hackney's targeting of Ridley Road traders.

They report:

"Hackney Council have now admitted that, because it's redevelopment plans will require moving traders off their pitches, there could be difficulties implementing its plans if traders had permanent rather than "casual" licenses. Permanent licensees have legal safeguards including rights of appeal to the Courts in cases of injustice."

Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund states:
" With stabbings, muggings and murder on the streets of Hackney you have to ask yourself why persecuting a market trader for offering fantastic value to the people of Hackney and selling goods by the pound is a priority whereas catching drug dealers selling heroin and cocaine by the gramme is not."

Will common sense and justice prevail?

Whilst the magistrates delivered 'the law' Janet Devers still faces four further charges arising from the same investigation. These were charges which could be dealt with by the Crown Court and can therefore be placed before a jury. The same witnesses will be called from Hackney Council but in addition to this former Market Inspectors will also be called to confirm their written statements made available to the defence that this was a campaign of harassment by senior council officers against Metric Martyr Colin Hunt and his businesses which included Janet's.

It is likely that Hackney Council will not be keen on having such matters placed before a jury but hopefully the case in January will attract massive support and press and media attention and justice can finally be done in the most public of fashions.

Former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, a supporter of Janet said:
"Mrs Devers case emphasised the importance of trial by jury. That means that 12 ordinary English people who will give a common sense outcome. I can't imagine that 12 good men and true will convict. They will give a reality check on what the state is up to."

Support

Once more we plead for support from the great British public. The support that has ensured that people like Janet can stand up in court to defend our very freedoms and liberties that were so hard fought for yet are treated with such contempt by those who think that they have the right to wield power over us.

Janet and other like Steve Thoburn and the other Metric Martyrs have shown, at great personal cost, that a stand has to be made against what is increasingly being seen as state tyranny.

Our first target is to ensure that there is no personal cost to Janet and then ensure that the Metric Martyrs Campaign has the funds to make the jury trial in January the most public of affairs.

The support over the years from the Campaign for an Independent Britain and your supporters has been unstinting and you have been with us every step of the way. We now need one final push to get the issue where it needs to be ... before a jury of 12 upstanding British citizens who will finally be able to override bad law and deliver and dispense something which the authorities fear ... JUSTICE.

Only then will the people realise that it is they who hold the real power.