Beauty therapist and accountant united by belief in their cause

They say people lose their idealism as they get older, but the 27 Greenpeace activists arrested with Peter Melchett at Lyng give the lie to that.

They say people lose their idealism as they get older, but the 27 Greenpeace activists arrested with Peter Melchett at Lyng give the lie to that.

They are far from being a bunch of teenage protesters; there is only one student among them, and she is 44. The average age of the whole group is 37, with nine in their 40s and 50s, and only two aged 26 or under.

Thirteen of them are Greenpeace employees, the others are Greenpeace supporters with jobs of their own, ranging from tree surgeon to beauty therapist, from Baptist minister to Oxfam co-ordinator, from care centre manager to accountant. Most are graduates; they come from all over the country.

What unites the whole group is a passionate belief that GM technology has the potential to harm the environment.

"Every one of them", said Judge David Mellor, after hearing them give evidence, "is intelligent, idealistic and committed to their cause. All were willing to take direct action in support of it, with the vital Greenpeace proviso of non-violence: they did not fight the police who arrived to arrest them, the nearest thing to resistance any offered being to go limp."

And all were deeply moved by their acquittal yesterday. There were gasps and cries of delight, and then, in the full minute it took to read out 28 not- guilty verdicts, several of them lapsed into tears.

In the court vestibule they hugged each other while their counsel, Owen Davies QC, called out to them: "I congratulate you on an astounding victory right across the board from a jury of local people."

Malcolm Carroll, 44, a Baptist minister from Stafford, said: "I'm very pleased to have been a member of this group of 28 very remarkable people, all with the same conviction that GM contamination is too risky to be allowed.

"But it has been a big personal investment. My two sons, being sensible children, are mortified when they see their dad on the news and they will be delighted it's over."

Emma Hargreaves, 27, a gardener from London, said: "I feel fantastic and relieved. It's been very worrying and a strain for everybody but it was important not just for us. The Government and the chemical companies must surely sit up and listen."