Five ‘Just Stop Oil’ (JSO) protesters have been jailed over protests which immobilised the M25 motorway around London in November 2022.
They were found guilty of conspiring to organise the protests to block the M25 for four successive days.
Roger Hallam, 58 (JSO co-founder), Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin 22, agreed to disrupt traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway. Hallam previously founded Extinction Rebellion.
They are thought to be the longest sentences ever given for ‘peaceful’ protest.
Forty-five protestors on the gantries cost the economy over £765,000 and the Metropolitan Police more than £1.1m; caused over 50,000 hours of vehicle delay; affected more than 700,000 vehicles; and “compromised” the M25 for more than 120 hours. Flights, funerals, exams and hospital cancer appointments were missed.
The defendants held a meeting on Zoom on 2 November 2022, during which they planned the protests and the recruiting of others to carry out the protests.
A journalist from The Sun had joined the call pretending to be interested in the protest and passed recordings to the police.
A jury convicted the defendants 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.
The defendants shouted “we love you” after the sentencing.
Judge Christopher Hehir told the defendants: “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.”
He said Hallam was “the theoretician, the ‘ideas’ man. In my judgement you sit at the very highest level of the conspiracy.”
[Photo: Wikimedia Commons}