Application papers to be lodged in Strasbourg - 3pm Monday (local; 2pm BST)

The "Metric Martyrs" - five men criminalised by the state simply for selling food in imperial measurements - will lodge papers at the European Court of Human Rights on Monday (12th August).

Human rights group Liberty will co-ordinate the legal challenge for the Metric Martyrs in their appeal to the European Court against the UK Government. The case will be argued on several points under the European Convention on Human Rights - including Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 9 (freedom of conscience), Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 1 of Protocol 1 (the right to peaceful possession of property).

The five - Steven Thoburn, Peter Collins, Colin Hunt, Julian Harman, and John Dove - will be represented in Strasbourg on Monday by Metric Martyrs campaign fund co-ordinator and former fishmonger Neil Herron, and Liberty director John Wadham, who will act as co-ordinating solicitor for the European case. They will be at the Strasbourg court on Monday at 3pm local time (2pm UK time) to lodge papers.

John Wadham, director of Liberty, says:
"It's ridiculous that people should be criminalised for this. It's completely out of proportion. The Government, the EU and the criminal justice system should not be involved in whether a grocer uses imperial or metric measurements - it's ludicrous".
Neil Herron, campaign coordinator for the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, says:

"Our fight for justice - not only for these five men but also for customers and shopkeepers across the land has been driven and supported wholeheartedly by the British public, incensed and angered by the fact that the politicians, the supposed custodians of their democracy, have treated them with such utter contempt".

BACKGROUND
Four of the five were separately convicted of different offences - summarised below - but the issues raised were the same. The divisional court was asked to rule on whether various subordinate laws affecting the five cases were unlawful and invalid. Human rights arguments went almost entirely unconsidered at this stage. On 15th July, four of the five were refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords - leaving the European Court of Human Rights as their only resort.

Steven Thoburn, of Sunderland, was convicted of two offences under the Weights & Measures Act - for using imperial scales that did not have an official stamp (this had been removed by a trading standards officer on a previous visit after he deemed the imperial scales illegal). He was pricing goods in the metric system as well as the imperial system.
Colin Hunt, trading in Hackney, was convicted under the Price Making Order 1999 for failing to advertise prices in metric. After converting his scales to metric in line with council advice, he made errors converting the price to imperial and was convicted under the Prices Act 1974.

Julian Harman (greengrocer) & John Dove (fishmonger), both trading in Camelford in Cornwall, were each convicted under the 1999 Price Marking Orders. Their offences included displaying signs pricing Brussels Sprouts and Pollack by the pound.

Peter Collins, in Sutton, was not convicted of any criminal offence. His licence to trade in fruit and vegetables contained conditions that he could only weigh and sell in metric (though he could display additional imperial prices). He complained to the magistrates' court under the Local Government Act; his appeal was dismissed. NB Some of the five regularly used the metric system alongside the imperial system; they stress that they are not anti-metric and that the offence in question is not refusing to use metric, but continuing to use imperial measurements.