Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause a blockade on London’s Ring Road have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for co-ordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.
Hallam was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday, while the other four were each sentenced to four years in prison.
The sentences are believed to be the longest ever handed down in the UK for non-violent protests, surpassing those handed down to Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland (three years) and Marcus Decker (two years and seven months) for climbing the Dartford Crossing.
All five had spoken on a Zoom call to try to recruit potential volunteers for the actions, which involved activists scaling motorway gantries at strategic points on the motorway, which encircles London and is a key road link.
In the call, Hallam said they intended to cause “the biggest disruption in modern British history” in a bid to force the government to meet Just Stop Oil’s core demand: an end to all new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Sentencing each of the defendants at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Christopher Hehir said: “The offences committed by all five of you are very serious and lengthy prison sentences must follow.
“I recognize that at least some of these concerns are shared by many, but the fact is that each of you has for some time crossed the line between concerned activist and fanatic.”
Supporters of the defendants expressed outrage at the sentences, which came after a two-week trial in which Judge Hehir denied them any legal defence for causing a public nuisance.
Hehir ruled that the jury should not consider evidence about climate change, which the defendants wanted to present as the primary motivation for their actions and which they said provided them with a reasonable excuse to justify them.
As he sent the defendants back to prison last week after their guilty verdicts, Hehir told them: “You are going to spend a very long time in prison.”
Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who attended part of the trial, criticised the harshness of protest laws recently introduced under the former conservative government.
“The UK is a nightmare for environmental activists in that respect,” he told the Guardian. “Facing several years in prison for taking part in a Zoom call – that’s something I haven’t seen anywhere else and it’s shockingly disproportionate.”
Naturalist Chris Packham called on supporters of the defendants to gather outside the courthouse at 4pm on Thursday. Citing the prison overcrowding crisis that has led the new Labour government to order the early release of thousands of prisoners, he said: “Why would we want to lock up five peaceful climate protesters?
“They have just been through a show trial where they have not been allowed to say why they are protesting, which has upset the UN. They have criticised the British government and said it is breaching the UK’s human rights obligations.”
