Bullshit. The full context of the situation was denied to the jury.

Remember, the entire reason we have juries is to allow for jury nullification. That’s literally the only benefit of juries. 12 random untrained people will never be better at deciding objective facts of guilt or innocence than a judge with a law degree and decades on the bench. We have juries as a final check against the kind of criminal corruption that has currently overtaken the UK government. The idea is that you can write whatever ridiculous laws you want, but at the end of the day you need to convince 12 average people that an offense worthy of punishment has been committed. The system is intended as a check against out of control government. Again, this is literally how the system is designed. (Judges will of course lie about this to protect their own power.) The government can write a law proscribing the death penalty for stealing a candy bar. But the jury system, if it works as intended, would prevent anyone from being convicted under that law.

The government here deliberately perverted the jury system to avoid jury nullification. They tried them under a minor offense. The jurors probably thought those convicted would get community service or a fine. That’s the rightful and just punishment for such an offense. Any greater a penalty, and jury nullification would have been on the table. Instead, the government secured a conviction under a minor offense but was able to get a sentence on par with a serious felony.

For your talk of the system working as intended, you sure are ignoring the government’s complete perversion of the jury system that is the very bedrock of our system of justice.