A serial protester has lashed out at a magistrate after she sentenced him for his involvement in a pro-Palestinian blockade that caused operations at a busy port to coming to a grinding halt.
Eric Herbert appeared in Sydney Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to seriously disrupting a major facility, obstructing a driver’s path and refusing to comply with police.
He was one of 23 people arrested by police after a protest that shuttered Sydney’s busy Port Botany for two hours on Tuesday night.
Specialist police units and mounted officers on horseback were called to respond to the disruption after more than 400 protesters refused an order to leave the cargo hub.
On Thursday, Herbert represented himself in court and explained he’d had a “failure in judgement” on that night.
“The space changed rapidly around me at the protest in a way that I didn’t respond to quickly enough,”...
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