‘Medicine says we are duty-bound to intervene when we see a looming threat, to take the most effective action to save a life – even if it involves breaking the rules.’

Consultant psychiatrist Juliette Brown implored a jury to look upon her and her five co-defendants – including three other doctors – through the lens of their professions.

She was speaking as one of six healthcare professionals on trial for criminal damage. Eight glass panels were broken at the London offices of banking giant and the world’s biggest fossil fuel financier JP Morgan during a heatwave in July 2022 – an action on behalf of climate protest group Extinction Rebellion.

The defendants – Dr Brown, along with GPs David McKelvey and Patrick Hart, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology Alice Clack, dementia specialist nurse Maggie Fay and child and adolescent mental health specialist Ali Rowe – were found not guilty by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court this week.

The doctors did not deny they broke the glass in question. CCTV evidence shown to the jury shows them all participating. They denied it being a criminal act, however, instead insisting it was an ‘act of care’ in a bid to persuade JP Morgan’s leaders to reduce fossil-fuel investments, decreasing global heating and air pollution and therefore saving lives.

Indeed, they brought with them signs that said: ‘IN CASE OF MEDICAL EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS.’

They say their duty as healthcare professionals is first and foremost protecting human life and health. This, the doctors said in evidence, is clearly set out by the GMC, which says registered doctors must ‘protect and promote the health of patients and the public’ and ‘act promptly if you think that patient safety or dignity may be seriously compromised’.

This, they argued in court, was exactly what they were doing on 17 July 2022, days before the UK reached 40ºC temperatures for the first time in a heatwave scientists have confirmed was responsible for thousands of excess deaths and caused by global warming for which fossil fuels have been proven to be the main driver.

‘When the evidence is undeniable, medicine tells us not to wait any longer,’ Dr Brown said in her closing speech to the jury. ‘It says we can’t save the lives that are already lost but what we do now will determine if it’s two billion or four billion [climate-related] deaths in our lifetime.’

The trial was the second time the six defendants have come before a jury over criminal-damage charges relating to the incident. In 2024, a jury at the same court was unable to reach a verdict.

Tom Wainwright, defending Dr Clack and Mrs Fay, in his closing speech said juries have been shown throughout history to be an ‘insurance’ against vested interests and must not feel any ‘pressure’ to reach a certain verdict.

That came after Alexander Williams, prosecuting, told the jury the question of criminal damage to the windows, which cost more than £190,000 to replace, was ‘narrow’.

‘This case is about what they did to the windows, it is not about why they did it,’ he said, adding that it must be tried on ‘evidence, not sentiment’.

‘There is no defence in law that this was a protest, or that it was well-meaning. They each intended for the glass to be damaged. So, it was deliberate.’

Mr Williams described the defendants as ‘good people’, who are ‘conscientious and sincere’.

‘And they have committed criminal damage,’ he added, saying: ‘The law applies to good people.’ He said the evidence in the case was ‘incontrovertible’.

However, the defendants disputed that notion, saying their actions were based on evidence and any damage was a byproduct to achieving their stated aims, all rooted in scientific fact.

They cited ‘unchallenged evidence’ of fossil fuels’ role in heating the planet, and that JP Morgan financed US$432bn (£341bn) of fossil fuel deals between the UN’s 2016 Paris Agreement, a treaty aimed at limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5°C, and 2024.

They also brought in as evidence JP Morgan’s leaked internal report, Risky Business, in which the bank’s economists said its investments would cause ‘catastrophic harm’ to human health and that ‘something has to change if the world is going to survive’.

And they cited the 2016 Lancet Countdown, which warned that global warming of more than 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels ‘risks catastrophic harm to health’, which is ‘impossible to reverse’.

Furthermore, the defendants pointed to evidence that non-violent direct action has been proven to be the ‘most effective mechanism’ to bring about societal change, with examples ranging from the Suffragettes and the American Civil Rights Movement to Gandhi’s independence campaign in India and the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

Dr Hart, in his evidence, gave the example of surgeon Louisa Garrett Anderson, who broke a window as part of the Suffragette movement and was sentenced to hard labour before later earning a CBE for her medical efforts in the First World War.

And Yvonne Kramo, representing Dr McKelvey, noted the window-smashing campaign by the Suffragettes which, despite more than 120 women being arrested, helped force changes including votes for women through a wider ‘Deeds Not Words’ campaign.

‘History has justified their actions,’ she told the court while making the case for a not-guilty verdict.

The jury heard how the group had tried multiple other methods of ‘outreach’ to JP Morgan before the action which led to the damaged windows, including writing to senior leaders and protests outside its London and Glasgow offices – none of which had made a difference to fossil-fuel investment choices. It also heard JP Morgan’s fossil-fuel investments did dip slightly after the action but have since risen again.

During his evidence, Dr McKelvey said the action needed to be ‘significant enough’ to get through to JP Morgan’s boardroom, ‘but not over the top’ in terms of disruption. He said the action was the right balance and that its ultimate aim, and his intention while taking part, was ‘to save life’.

Miss Rowe, who the court heard was a ‘highly informed’ professional of ‘honesty’ and ‘integrity’ who had taken part in numerous campaigns to raise awareness of the climate emergency including Ella’s Law on air pollution, told the jury she had ‘exhausted all my options’ in trying to convince JP Morgan to change its ways before the action.

The group said the action was timed for the week in question after forecasts of the deadly heatwave, which was later shown to have contributed to thousands of excess deaths that summer, because that was further evidence of the deadly effects of unchecked fossil-fuel expansion. They said it was also risk-assessed, that they took full accountability of their actions and that they clearly communicated their motives.

The defendants were each pressed on whether it was their ‘intention’ to break the glass but argued – in medical parlance – that the breaking of the glass was merely a ‘side-effect’ of a primary intention of trying to bring about a reduction in fossil fuels to save life.

Mrs Fay compared the action of ‘carefully cracking’ the bank’s windows to CPR, an action she said is ‘taken to save life’. Asked whether it was her intention to break the windows, she said that during CPR, patients’ ribs can sometimes be broken ‘in the course of saving life’.

Dr Brown explained how some conditions, such as diabetes, are exacerbated in extreme heat and how medication can be affected. ‘Climate change is a present danger for all of us,’ she said.

Dr Clack told the court: ‘When delivering an emergency caesarean section, my aim is to deliver a baby safely, not to cut a wound in a woman’s body. Our intention was to draw attention to the climate emergency.’

In response to questions about whether the group was trying to ‘punish' JP Morgan, she said the repair costs were to JP Morgan the equivalent of ‘about 20p’ to the average working person in the UK, given the company’s vast wealth.

The defendants also said that, when the action was planned, protesters were allowed to use a defence known as ‘proportionality’ in court, which is no longer allowed in cases such as this.

‘I knew that was a legal defence available at that time,’ said Dr Clack, who said she has ‘no plans to do it again’.

The court heard character references in support of five of the six defendants. Each was praised for their work as a healthcare professional and for their campaigning on climate crisis.

Professor Philip Banfield, former council chair of the BMA, wrote in support of Dr Clack, with whom he works in Wales. His statement said: ‘Dr Clack is one of the most remarkable and courageous doctors I have ever had the honour to work with.’

Prof Banfield referred to her ‘steely determination’ to ‘help people on a global scale’ and that it would be ‘a complete disaster for patients if Dr Clack was prevented from continuing in her current clinical role’ as a result of the trial.

The professional implications of a guilty verdict would have been potentially huge for the defendants, none of whom have had any questions raised about their clinical performance.

The GMC’s Good Medical Practice guidelines say doctors must self-refer if they have been found guilty of a criminal offence. All three of the doctors known to have faced a MPTS (Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service) tribunal as a result of convictions relating to climate protest have been suspended.

That includes Dr Hart, a defendant in this case, who was not allowed to give character references because of the mention of his previous convictions – which he said he wanted the jury to hear in order to be fully ‘transparent’.

The jury heard that Dr Hart spent four months in prison last year after being convicted of criminal damage to petrol pump screens at a service station in Essex the month after the JP Morgan protest. They were told he has two convictions for aggravated trespass relating to climate activism.

He has also been acquitted for climate protests three times, including throwing orange powder on the pitch during an England Rugby match at Twickenham.

In his closing speech, Dr Hart said the jury had been ‘asked to try this case without emotion’.

‘The action that we took was driven by a deep sense of care,’ he said. ‘You heard that we acted in hope.

‘Life is not fair but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make it fairer.’

The BMA has policy acknowledging that climate change is a public health emergency and that medical professionals have an ethical duty to advocate for urgent action.

The motion, passed at the association’s 2025 annual representative meeting, also condemns punitive action against doctors who take part in non-violent climate activism, including regulatory complaints or employment repercussions. 

GP Nora Murray-Cavanagh, who tabled the motion, said: ‘If we punish the doctors who shout for help, who is left to resuscitate society?’

In this case, the jury reached a similar conclusion.