Dredd used various "dirty tricks" to undermine the March. He blackmailed the organisers by fabricating evidence against them and threatening to leak it to the press. He told Gort Hyman that if he did not withdraw he would conscript his children into the Academy of Law to be trained as cadet judges (the Academy does not require parental consent). He arrested an elderly leader on a trumped-up charge and made him stand all night without sleep or food, before releasing him minutes before the March was due to start, so that he would collapse from exhaustion along the way, undermining morale. Dredd ordered Weather Control to produce rain to reduce attendance. By the time the March started, numbers were well below the expected turnout. Undercover judges planted as agitators in the crowd first undermined morale by defeatist talk, and then incited violence by throwing things at uniformed judges, giving Dredd the excuse he needed to send in riot squads to break up the March and make arrests. The organisers were sentenced to significant terms of incarceration. Yet publicly, the Judges appeared to have the moral high ground.