Brighton and Hove road protesters cleared by court

Two protesters from Brighton and Hove were among six people cleared of obstructing or disrupting work on the Bexhill to Hastings Link Road.

Tom Druitt, 35, of Osmond Road, Hove, and Allie Cannell, 24, of London Road, Brighton, were found not guilty by District Judge Peter Crabtree at Brighton Magistrates’ Court today (Wednesday 12 March).

Mr Druitt, who runs the Big Lemon bus company, and Mr Cannell, a former local election candidate for the Green Party, were arrested in January last year.

They refused to come down from a tree in Crowhurst, near Hastings, as part of their protest against work on the new link road.

Mr Druitt tweeted this afternoon: “Six of us on trial, six aqcuitted. Judge said we were exercising our right to protest within reasonable boundaries.”

Mr Druitt also camped in an elm at the Seven Dials in Brighton last year as part of a protest which saved the tree from the threat of being chopped down.