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Ruth Wyner writes following the December 1st Appeal Court Hearing

At last, a feeling that the juggernaut of British justice is turning and getting on the right track, that we are being properly heard. To know that John and I are not going back to prison is an enormous relief for us and for our families and surely the attitude of the three appeal court judges has to give us some hope for a positive final result.

These personal feelings are naturally our primary ones but we know that our colleagues in the homeless sector, and elsewhere, will be anxious about the result of the appeal. They have a vital job to do and need to know that they can do it safe from prosecution.

The appeal court was packed, mostly with our supporters but five police officers claimed a front row in the public gallery. Our QC Michael Mansfield started the proceedings, initially outlining the case and then concentrating on the issue of subjectivity and the way the trial judge, Judge Haworth, handled this. It was in two parts:

level of knowledge - at the trial Haworth stated that it did not matter whether we believed one deal a week or 100 deals a week were taking place, we still had to take the same measures to counteract it. This just didn’t seem to make sense.

confidentiality - Wintercomfort had refused the police request to see our ban book, which had the names of people banned from the day centre for illegal drug use as well as for dealing or suspected dealing. Judge Haworth had told the jury to ignore our confidentiality policy, as it had no bearing, or if they wanted to take account of it, they could see it as evidence of our unwillingness to help the police. This seemed to twist our intentions in setting up a confidentiality policy, which as far as we are aware is accepted good practice.

We then had an address from the prosecution. They had brought in a new QC, Bill Clegg, and to our surprise he brought in traffic cases as examples, which seemed pretty irrelevant to us. But Mr. Clegg also conceded on a major point, the issue of level of knowledge.

In his second address, after the lunch break, Mike Mansfield rounded on this. "Do you realise that at the trial there was three days of legal argument over this point," he said, waving a sheaf of papers which were the transcript. "The judge ruled against us but the prosecution have now given way over it."

Of course they had to. No agency will act as if something is taking place when they are not aware of it. And being psychic is not in our job descriptions. Mr. Mansfield sensibly pointed out that our beat bobby, who had free access to the project and visited regularly, was not aware of drug dealing either. He described how the drug addicts had a system of lookouts and said in court that they would not do anything in front of John and me, as they knew that we were strict. At last, a bit of reality coming into the courtroom. This was not big time dealing, it was addicts surreptitiously selling £10 deals to make enough for a hit for themselves.

There seemed to be disbelief among the judges about Haworth’s attitude to confidentiality, and Mike Mansfield went through various points in Haworth’s summing up to the jury, where he seemed to us to be giving them no choice but to return a guilty verdict.

The real drama came at the end. The Appeal Judges said they needed time to clarify and write up their decision. I thought it would finish there, but it seemed that the judges wanted to make a point. They asked to look briefly at the sentencing, and then it came out. The judges said that the sentences were "far too long" and they reassured John and me that we would not be going back to prison whether or not the convictions were quashed.

I felt the most immense relief. "For once my optimism has won out over your pessimism," I said to John, who’d brought a bag with him to court in case he got banged up there and then.

Then the judges asked for the prosecution’s response if a retrial was ordered. They said they would not present any evidence on a retrial and several people thought they heard one of the judges say: "I’m not surprised." Surely that should give us some hope. Meanwhile, the five coppers sitting together at the front of the public gallery looked very dejected indeed.

I felt that the judges were especially good to us. They didn’t need to say that we wouldn’t be going back to prison, but they chose to do it and that was very kind of them. This Christmas will be very different from last year’s, very different indeed.

Click here to read about the verdict

Click here to read about the history of the campaign