Our names are Marcus Blackett and Richard House. In January 2021 we were arrested during lockdown (Tier 4 restrictions) in Stroud wearing sandwich boards with the caption “Citizens’ Conversation” on one side, and a narrative-challenging question on the other. The two of us are trained psychological therapists who were distressed by the tsunami of mental health and emotional problems being unleashed nationally by the draconian covid restrictions, and we wanted to do something to alleviate this in our beloved local community of Stroud.

All of the reputable empirical research on the effects of lockdowns published since these British lockdowns have confirmed what we claimed from the outset – viz. that lockdown restrictions perpetrated far greater net harm on society than they did good. In our demonstration of January 2021, we were striving to do our best, within the law, to mitigate these noxious Impacts on the people of Stroud – noxious impacts that, incredibly, the law of the land was actually perpetrating. For these absurd convictions to stand would amount to legitimising our government legislating to harm its own citizens – a scarcely believable state of affairs in a democratic society.

Some months back we raised nearly £4,000 to help us challenge these convictions in the courts, and we are delighted to announce that we won a major victory in Cheltenham Magistrates Court on Wednesday 26 October when the court agreed to a re-trial. The Court, having considered our defence team’s detailed legal submissions agreed to set aside our original convictions and fines, re-opened the case, and ordered that a new trial should take place.

We now need to raise a further £3.600 in order that our outstanding legal team can represent us in the re-trial, which is scheduled for February 2023. Please help us with our re-trial by funding this action for democracy, sovereignty and civil rights. In supporting this legal case, you can help to row back the criminal overreach to which fellow free men and women have been subjected by the State over the past 30 months. Any excess funds not required will be used for a legal case of our choosing in relation to fines issued against others for breaching coronavirus regulations.

Finally, a huge “thank you” to our friends and supporters whose generosity has enabled us to fund this legal challenge to date. Our heart-felt thanks to you all.