Occupy London activists camped outside St Paul's Cathedral are due to find out today whether they will be evicted from the site they have occupied since October.
Mr Justice Lindblom is due to hand down judgment in the high court at 2pm, following a five-day hearing before Christmas on the legal status of the camp in the lee of St Paul's in the City of London.
Caroline Davies will be down at the court and reporting and tweeting from there, David Shariatmadari will be at St Paul's talking to the protesters, and I'll be live blogging proceedings from here.
Legal action was brought by the City of London Corporation, which claimed that the Occupy London Stock Exchange (LSX) camp – a protest against the banking system and the government's response to the financial crisis – was attracting vulnerable people, and there were concerns about sanitation, safety and vandalism. The Corporation says there is an "overwhelming" case for the court to grant orders for possession and injunctions against Occupy London because of the impact of the camp on the area around the cathedral.
Their lawyers argued they were not seeking to prevent lawful and peaceful protest or lawful assembly in the general location - but the right to protest enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights did not justify a semi-permanent campsite on the public highway - particularly in a location like St Paul's.
John Cooper QC, for Occupy LSX, claimed the camp's impact had been exaggerated. Lawyers for the protesters said that the case raised an issue of "extreme public importance" and that freedom of expression was a liberty which ought to be guarded by the courts. The camp did not prevent worship at St Paul's and any impact it did have on on those visiting, walking through or working in the vicinity was not solely detrimental, they argued.
They said that politicians, members of the public and commentators had expressed support for the camp's presence and the sentiments behind it, at a time when there was a consensus that the issues it raised needed addressing.
St Paul's did not join the legal action, but Nicholas Cottam, the cathedral registrar, described acts of "desecration" and falling visitor numbers due to the "unpleasantness of the camp and presence of the media".
If the camp is evicted, an online campaign has called for supporters to form a ring of prayer in solidarity while others are calling for non-violent resistance, Caroline reports.
Join us here for live coverage as it happens.
A protester at Occupy Seattle wears a Guy Fawkes mask. Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
It's worth watching this Channel 4 News feature on a visit to the Occupy London camp by Alan Moore, whose 1982 comic V for Vendetta inspired the Guy Fawkes mask worn by many Occupy protesters around the world.
Face to face with two protesters wearing the mask as the bells of St Paul's toll behind them, he tells them: "It's a bit surprising when some of your characters who you thought you'd made up suddenly seem to have escaped into ordinary reality."
And he tells Channel 4 News:
I'm amazed, I'm very impressed and I'm rather touched. The people here are amazing. I think this is probably the best organised and most forward-thinking protest that I've ever had experience of.
And he says there is "a strong strand of anarchy that runs through nearly all of the important characters in British culture".
Occupy London have put up some more footage of his visit on their Facebook page.
Caroline DeLaney of law firm Kingsley Napley gives her view of the importance of today's hearing:
The removal of protesters has become costly, time-consuming and complex. The law is currently a patchwork of criminal and civil remedies which are applied inconsistently and reform of this area of law is long overdue.
Today's judgment will need to have taken account of the human right to protest balanced against the public right to use the highway. It is highly likely the losing party will appeal. Indeed if other protester situations are anything to go by we can expect this dispute to drag on for some time to come.
On their website, Occupy London invite their supporters to gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice from 1.30pm today. "Bring your banners, bring your gusto," they say.
They plan to hold a press conference outside the court straight after the judgment.
No matter which way today's judgment goes, it is unlikely to be the end of the story. Occupy London say they are certain to appeal if they lose, while a spokesman for the Corporation of London said the local authority would wait to see what the judge actually says before deciding - because what he says in his judgment would be important when making that decision.
On the New Statesman website, Laurie Penny has posted an interesting article about the gap between the goals and behaviour of "the more media-savvy organisers of Occupy London" and "the waifs and strays and nuts and eccentrics, the wide-eyed young men with theories about how computers can calculate the perfect democracy, the straggle-haired women with bags full of paintbrushes and dirt in the creases of their cheeks" who have joined their camps outside St Paul's, in Finsbury Square, and in their "Bank of Ideas" just north of the City.
In London, some of the cleaner activists I meet, including those who have been involved in organising the camps from the start, quietly express the opinion that eviction might now be the best thing that could happen to the occupations …
The main bone of contention is not drugs, but direction. Some activists are unhappy that Occupy London has chosen to work so closely with the Church on whose ground they have been camped for three months; others believe that movement has been taken over by external lobby groups with their own agendas. Still others are concerned that the general assemblies are choosing to focus ... on "the legal thing". The camp has spent much of its remaining energy fighting running battles to keep the sites open, and occupiers in the legal working groups hope to set a precedent in English case law to protect protesters' rights to free expression under article 10 of the European convention on human rights.
Occupy London supporters are gathering outside the high court ahead of the ruling on whether they will be evicted from the lee of St Paul's, my colleague Caroline Davies reports.
Giles Fraser, the former canon chancellor of St Paul's who resigned over the church's dispute with the protesters, is here in "solidarity", he told Caroline.
One supporter said: "Whatever the ruling, it's not the end. This is a fluid movement."
They have tied a huge banner reading "Occupied Justice" to the railings of the high court, Caroline reports.
Here's a picture of that banner, courtesy of James Albury on Twitter.
Jamie Kelsey-Fry posts another picture of the banner outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
My colleague Caroline Davies continues to report from the Royal Courts of Justice:
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