Michael Apathy, Thomas Taptiklis, Te Wehi Ratana and Andrew Sutherland have been charged with endangering transport for their actions across three of those protests in October 2022.
In morning rush hour traffic on October 10, prosecutor Mitchell Heslip said Sutherland, Taptiklis and one other person climbed up the Bolton St gantry on State Highway 1 between Hill St and Bolton St to hang their Restore Passenger Rail banner below it.
He said Taptiklis then suspended himself with a harness beside the sign.
A week later, during morning rush hour on October 18, Heslip said Ratana and Taptiklis abseiled down the Hataitai side of the Mt Victoria Tunnel to hang a large Restore Passenger Rail banner which they lowered into the stream of traffic below.
Meanwhile, on the morning of October 27, Heslip said Apathy and two other people hung a large sign from a Johnsonville gantry on the guard-rail across the southbound lane of the Johnsonville-Porirua Motorway, which said “Michael Wood we need to talk”. A smaller Restore Passenger Rail sign was hung below the gantry.
Heslip told the jury the stunts forced road closures and created risk to fellow protesters, road users and responding police officers.
The Crown’s case was that the protesters recognised the risk to others their actions posed and that the risk they created was not reasonable.
Defence lawyer Christopher Stevenson – who was representing some of the protesters – told the jury that in the months leading up to the protesters’ actions there had been dire warnings from the United Nations and the UK Government that suggested the world could become unliveable due to climate change, and that humanity was at risk.
He said warnings like these compelled some people to take action.
But he said Restore Passenger Rail’s protests were careful, safe and targeted.
The trial is set down for three weeks.
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