Record sentences for Just Stop Oil protesters
Five Just Stop Oil protesters, including a Grantchester resident and former University of Cambridge student, have been jailed for conspiring to organise protests that blocked the M25 motorway and given what are thought to be the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protest. Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam, 58, from Wales, Daniel Shaw, 38, from Northampton, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 34, from Derby, Louise Lancaster, 58, from Grantcheser, and former University of Cambridge student Cressida Gethin, 22, from Hereford, were all found guilty of planning to disrupt the M25 in November 2022. The plan involved climbing up a number of gantries that cross over the motorway to demand an end to the licensing of new oil and gas.
Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while the remaining four defendants were each handed four years' imprisonment.
Prosecutors alleged the M25 protests, which saw 45 people climb up the gantries, led to an economic cost of at least GBP765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was more than GBP1.1m. They also said it caused more than 50,000 hours of vehicle delay, affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 "compromised" for more than 120 hours. A police officer suffered concussion and bruising after being knocked off his motorbike in a collision between two lorries caused by one of the protests on November 9 2022, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday (18 July).
All five defendants joined a Zoom call on November 2 2022 in which discussions were held about the planned protests, Ms Ledward told the court.
A journalist from The Sun newspaper recorded some of the call and passed the recordings on to the police. There was "extensive organisation and planning" for the protests and each defendant had a "significant role" in the conspiracy, Ms Ledward said. The defendants were convicted by a jury of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance, contrary to section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, on July 11.
The defendants, referred to as the Whole Truth Five by Just Stop Oil on social media, spoke to confirm their names in court and shouted "We love you" from the dock immediately after the sentences were passed down.
Judge Hehir said: "The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. "You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change."
Addressing Hallam, the judge said: "In my judgment you sit at the very highest level of the conspiracy." The judge ruled that that the jury should not take into account evidence about climate breakdown,
After the conclusion of the case, Michel Forst, the UN's special rapporteur on environmental defenders, said: "Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest" in the UK "This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.
"Rulings like today's set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day." Prof Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, said: "The trial and verdict were a farce. They mark a low point in British justice and they were an assault on free speech."
The naturalist and TV broadcaster, Chris Packham, said at a press conference after the sentencing: "Be clear, be very, very clear, this is not just about climate activism.
"The laws that have been drafted, the injustices that are being wrought, threaten all rights of free speech.
"We stand here today because our future security may be comprised by the reckless and irresponsible erosion of our human rights, of our fundamental freedoms." "I stand here because I believe this represents the direct theft of our freedom, the destruction of our democracy, the deliberate and calculated intimidation of our protesters, and that, unless we resist this, the very real danger is that our species will destroy life on Earth." Mr Packham called for a recorded meeting with new Attorney General Richard Hermer "as rapidly as possible" so that he could "address this grotesque miscarriage of justice".
Ms Lancaster said: "We are being systematically silenced ...
Public nuisance? I acted in the public good. How can direct action to prevent cataclysmic harm to the general public not be in the public good?
"It's not unlawful for a group committed to bring about change to protect life." Ms Gethin said: "People are dying already. My generation is being cast into the dust."
Raj Chada, from Hodge Jones & Allen, representing Hallam, Shaw and Whittaker De Abreu, said in a statement: "Today, the world was watching to see whether the UK will retain the hallmarks of a civilised society where non-violent direct action protestors will not be imprisoned. Today we are disappointed.
"Our planet is in emergency, and I hope the Government starts investing in tackling the climate crisis rather than prosecuting those that raise the alarm. "We will be considering our options whether to appeal this ridiculous sentence."
There have been no protests on the M25 since November 2022.