Image source, Just stop the oil/PA
- Author, Tom Symonds
- Role, BBC News
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Five environmental activists who organised protests that brought parts of the M25 to a standstill for four days have been jailed.
Forty-five Just Stop Oil protesters scaled gantries on the motorway in November 2022, forcing police to stop traffic, in an attempt to cause gridlock in southern England.
Judge Christopher Hehir said Roger Hallam, 58, Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin, 22, had “crossed the line from concerned activist to fanatic”.
At Southwark Crown Court, Hallam was sentenced to five years in prison while the other defendants each received four-year prison sentences.
“Complex planning”
The sentences are the longest since the last government introduced a new conspiracy to cause public nuisance law to crack down on disruptive protests.
The court heard the intention was to block most of the M25, preventing traffic from other routes joining the motorway.
The protests caused chaos on the M25 for four consecutive days, causing drivers to spend almost 51,000 hours behind schedule, the court heard. The protests led to the closure of parts of the motorway in Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire.
People missed flights, medical appointments and tests. Two trucks collided and a police motorcyclist fell off his motorcycle during one of the protests on November 9, 2022 while trying to block traffic in a “rolling roadblock.”
Prosecutors claimed the protests had cost the economy at least £765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was estimated at more than £1.1 million.
A Zoom call chaired by Shaw was hacked and recorded by a Sun newspaper reporter and passed to police, the court heard.
Judge Hehir said the recording revealed the “complex planning and level of sophistication involved” in the protest action.
He said the defendants were “flaunting their political views” by appointing themselves as “the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.”
Hallam, a veteran environmental campaigner, was described as the movement’s “ideas man”, while the judge said Shaw was “deeply involved” in planning the protest.
Whittaker De Abreu and Gethin were arrested near the M25 while dressed to climb the gantries that cross the motorway.
Lancaster rented a secure house for the activists who were to participate and purchased climbing equipment.
Representing herself in court, Lancaster said the impact of climate change meant it was a “perilous and critical moment in human history” and added that “all other means of democratic persuasion have failed”.
Gethin, of Dorstone in Herefordshire, told the judge: “It was always my intention to limit the damage caused by the disruption.” But, she added, this would not have happened if “those in power had taken their responsibilities seriously”.
A lawyer for Hallam said the 58-year-old had since rejected the direct action campaign because of its limitations and had changed his approach to more conventional political campaigning.
The judge responded that the activist had “turned the trial into a direct protest action.”
During the trial, Hallam was arrested three times for disobeying the judge’s orders.
He also encouraged his supporters to go to court with signs that read: “Juries have the right to hear the whole truth.”
On July 2, some arrived with placards that read: “Jurors have the absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.”
As a result, the judge, apparently concerned that this might affect the jury’s decisions, ordered the arrest of 11 protesters for contempt of court.
However, Judge Hehir confirmed on Thursday that he had dropped the charges, saying Hallam had “orchestrated” the protest in court, making those who responded to his call less culpable.
The 11 people said they “vehemently denied the unfounded accusation that we were manipulated into acting for or by Roger Hallam.”
Image source, Essex Police
Hallam said in a statement during the trial: “The corruption of our judges by the Carbon State has crossed a line in the sand.
“This is an opportunity and an obligation to act. We have only a limited time to stop the unimaginable horrors of climate change and social collapse – and to save our democracy.”
The Conspiracy to Cause Public Nuisance Act, which was introduced in 2022, prohibits any direct action that causes “serious harm” to any member of the public. This can include property damage, injury, serious distress, annoyance or inconvenience.
In April 2023, Morgan Trowland, who scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, was jailed for three years for breaching the new legislation.
The judge in the M25 case argued that Parliament had made clear that it considered non-violent direct action against national infrastructure to be serious and had passed a law allowing it to impose sentences of up to 10 years – longer than for some violent offences.
“Direct flight of our freedom”
Speaking outside court, TV presenter and environmental campaigner Chris Packham criticised what he described as “the reckless and irresponsible erosion of our human rights”.
Mr Packham said that “the five peaceful protesters were denied the right to properly state what motivated their alleged crimes” and that jurors were “denied their fundamental right to acquit the defendants on the basis of their conscience”.
He told those gathered: “I am here because I believe this represents the direct theft of our freedom, the destruction of our democracy, the deliberate and calculated intimidation of protesters, and that if we do not resist this, the very real danger is that our species will destroy life on Earth.”
Update: This article originally stated that Roger Hallam encouraged 11 supporters to go to court with placards and has been edited to remove the suggestion that these 11 people were specifically encouraged to do so. We have also added a statement from the 11 people denying that this is the case.
