A retired electrical engineer who opposed the rollout of climate spy cameras in and around London has been jailed for 15 years after a court found he had bombed one with an IED.
Judge Anthony Bate at the Old Bailey jailed 64-year-old retired electrical engineer Kevin Rees for 15 years on Friday after he was found guilty of “causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property”, and three counts of “possessing a prohibited weapon”, namely a collection of homemade taser-like stun guns.
Rees denied all charges, but the court heard that he had run Facebook groups that agitated against the rollout of the network of smart surveillance cameras enabling the Ultra-Low Emission Zone initiative of London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Under the now well established system, owners of cars with older engines — which the Mayor decries as being more polluting — have to pay a steep daily fee to drive in and around London.
Critics decried the network as climate spy cameras and said the rule heavily penalised working class tradesmen who rely on diesel trucks for business, and who couldn’t switch to carrying materials and tools on public transport.
A group of anti-camera activists, who identified themselves as ‘blade runners’ went about sabotaging the cameras, often on the same day they were installed by contractors, cutting cables or even felling the posts. Hundreds of cameras were vandalised.
Yet in the case of Rees, the court heard he went further, using an improvised explosive device (IED) to destroy a camera in Sidcup, Kent on December 6th 2023, states court reporting service Court News UK.
The explosion was of such force it damaged passing vehicles and nearby homes. The prosecution told the court that “one piece of the camera was propelled over 100 metres into the upper part of a house, it was pure chance that no-one suffered serious injury, or worse”.
The device was said to be a metal cylinder filled with an explosive powder and fitted with a simple fuse. London’s Metropolitan Police asserted that there was a “terrorism connection” in the case, reported the BBC.
They noted the retired electrical engineer was a “committed campaigner against the ULEZ scheme”. No explosives were found at his home, but after Rees was arrested by counter-terrorism police in 2023 raids on properties associated with him were said to have discovered a price list from an industrial chemical company, 100 grams (3½oz) of aluminium powder, and 330 grams (11½oz) of iron oxide, which police said “can be used to form low explosive compositions”.
As previously reported, the campaign against the ULEZ cameras became so pronounced the London city government had to deploy mobile surveillance vans and even, allegedly, bands of masked enforcers to protect the infrastructure from civil disobedience campaigns.