An ‘arrogant’ antivaxxer was sentenced to 21 months in prison for smashing windows at two Covid vaccination centers with rocks, inflicting £11,000 in damage.
On June 16, Paul Edwards, 58, was found guilty of destroying property at Mold Crown Court.
Paul Edwards had not’shown any insight into the devastation your behavior caused,’ according to Judge Rhys Rowlands. He sentenced the anti-vaxxer to 21 months in prison for the harm he caused.
On December 14, he was apprehended by North Wales Police after smashing five windows at a vaccination clinic near the police station in Llandudno, the court heard.
However, prosecutor Anna Price claimed he vandalized 25 glass at the OpTIC building in the St Asaph industrial park the next night.
Also just damaged one of the immunization center’s windows, but he caused damage to the park’s shops.
The immunization effort was not hampered in any way.
Edwards, who was defending himself, denied two charges of property damage.
‘Both incidents include attacks on wider society,’ said Judge Rhys Rowlands.
Edwards had ‘Genuinely and strongly-held beliefs critical of official policies and regulations’ to protect the people, according to the judge.
He couldn’t, however, break the law to impose his beliefs on those who might have considered the jabs as a lifeline.
Edwards’ behavior, he added, was “arrogant and particularly heinous.”
Judge Rowlands told the defendant : ‘You haven’t shown any insight to the harm your behaviour caused, or its potential to have caused, vulnerable individuals.
‘You intended to break into both premises and cause far more damage.’
A security guard was cut by flying glass during the incident.
Edwards told the jury he had been trying to obstruct the vaccination programme which was putting the public ‘in danger.’
He claimed there had been ‘deliberate scaremongering’ and there was ‘censorship’ in Britain.
Communist China had a vested interest in destabilising Western society, he argued.
