Friday 3 November 2017. Sheffield tree campaigners were in an upbeat mood today after the local council failed in its efforts to send local ‘save our trees’ activist Calvin Payne to prison for up to two years. Instead a High Court judge gave Payne a three month suspended sentence in today’s hearing after earlier finding Payne was in contempt of court for three breaches of an injunction he had issued in the summer. The injunction, successfully sought by Labour-controlled Sheffield City Council (SCC), prohibits anyone from standing inside portable safety zones that are erected around trees which are about to be chain sawed . [In 2012, SCC signed a 25-year £2.2 billion PFI contract with the Spanish-owned multinational Amey; to date, Amey has felled more than 5,000 mostly heathy trees in a city SCC promotes as the UK’s ‘outdoor capital.’] Payne, 44, told reporters and supporters that he now plans to “spend more time on the 95% of the [trees] campaign” that does not involve standing inside Amey safety barriers. Payne kicked off the resistance campaign in the summer of 2015 when he camped out in a local park. Carry on “your important campaign – legally”, urged Payne’s barrister, Paul Powlesland, of London. Powlesland, who represented Payne on a pro bono basis, said that “thousands of people” across the country supported the efforts of Sheffield tree campaigners. Nearby, the pavement outside the main court house had been chalked with the messages “Justice 4 Trees” and “The SCC cabal makes Gove look good.” Tory environment secretary Michel Gove, who supports fracking, has called the SCC’s tree felling scheme ‘bonkers.’ Observers suggested there would have been even broader local and national support for the trees movement if Justice Males had chosen to send Payne to prison today. Besides what Payne calls “the environmental crimes” being committed on Sheffield streets, others are also voicing concerns about human rights abuses. Last week while cross-examining the head of the SCC tree felling programme, Powlesland exposed how SCC ‘evidence gathers’ were misinterpreting the terms of the injunction and were telling residents in letters dated 6 October they had broken the injunction --- and would be required to appear in court --- when, in fact., this was manifestly an untrue “threat” At today’s hearing, Payne, a mate and a “man of limited means” (as they say) was also ordered to pay SCC legal costs of £16,000 by Justice Males. Asked how he would pay that amount to SCC, he replied, “I don’t know.” In the past two years, SCC has spent nearly £500,000 in legal costs and £ 96,000 on last week’s hearing (and today’s) trying “to crush the protestors” as said Powlesland in court today. SCC has failed to do so again. On Monday, teams of tree campaigners will no doubt be out on the streets of Sheffield’s “tree heaven” a.k.a. Nether Edge. And my mate has just e-mailed out leaflet distribution assignments for outside three local Labour Party meetings next week. Where all of this leaves SCC head Julie Dore is uncertain. As local lefties joke: “it doesn’t look like there will be a Julie Dore road to socialism after all.”