Restore Passenger Rail protester not guilty
Monday, 10 March 2025
A jury has found one of the men who stopped Wellington traffic during Restore Passenger Rail protests not guilty.
Meanwhile deliberations are continuing to reach verdicts on three others.
The four had climbed structures above traffic and lowered banners, and in one case swung in a chair harness above the traffic.
Two of the protests were staged from metal gantries above State Highway 1 at Johnsonville and Bolton St, and the third at the mouth of the Mt Victoria tunnel in Wellington.
On trial were: Michael Reginald Apathy, 44; Te Wehi Heketoro Ratana, 29; Andrew Gerald Sutherland, 64; and Thomas Brydone Taptiklis, 44.
The defendants were charged with endangering transport in 2022. Taptiklis pleaded not guilty to two charges — on October 10 and 18 — and the others pleaded not guilty to one charge: Sutherland on October 10; Ratana on October 18; and Apathy on October 27.
The charges alleged interference with a transport facility — SH1 — that was likely to cause danger to people or vehicles using the highway, with reckless disregard for their safety.
Although the protests were said to be in support of passenger rail services it was part of a response to climate change.
The jury found Sutherland not guilty on Monday for his part in a protest banner being hung from the gantry near Bolton St. The jury is still considering its verdicts on Apathy, Ratana and Taptiklis.
At the trial it was not disputed the four were genuinely alarmed about climate change.
The defence said the danger of what they did was overplayed and their response to the situation was reasonable, but the Crown said police acted on the danger and closed the roads below gantries on two days, and the Mt Victoria tunnel on one day.
Two men had abseiled down to the entrance tunnel to hang a banner, while on other days protesters scaled a gantry over the highway near the city and another near Johnsonville.
Judge Stephen Harrop had told the jury that protest and freedom of speech was protected in New Zealand but that did not mean protesters were immune from prosecution.
Police had said traffic had to be stopped because of the dangers the protests posed.
The defendants said the protests and manner of protest were justified but the Crown said no reasonable and prudent person would have done what they did.
Crown prosecutor Grant Burston had told the jury at the start of the trial that as one police officer described it, they caused ‘bedlam’, and as one of the defendants admitted it had pretty close to zero success in influencing politicians.