Just Stop Oil activists await ruling in Silverstone convictions appeal

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Five Just Stop Oil activists who disrupted the 2022 British Grand Prix must wait to discover if they have successfully challenged their convictions over the protest at the Court of Appeal.

Alasdair Gibson and Louis McKechnie, both 23, David Baldwin, 48, Emily Brocklebank, 26, and 30-year-old Joshua Smith were found guilty of risking “serious harm” to drivers and race marshals during a track invasion.

At an appeal hearing on Wednesday, the group’s lawyers argued their convictions were “unsafe”.

Lord Justice Holroyde, who heard the appeals alongside Mr Justice Griffiths and Judge Nicholas Dean, said the judges would give their written ruling at a later date.

Jurors at Northampton Crown Court convicted the group in February last year after being shown footage of some sitting on and being dragged off the circuit at Silverstone as two Formula One cars passed close by.

The activists all denied causing a public nuisance at the July 2022 race in Northamptonshire, claiming the protest had followed a “meticulous” safety plan.

Prosecutors argued protesters had clearly caused an immediate risk of serious harm to drivers and race marshals by sitting “in the face” of fast-moving vehicles.

Baldwin, Gibson and Smith were handed 12-month community orders by Mr Justice Garnham in March last year.

McKechnie and Brocklebank – who have a joint previous conviction for glueing themselves to the frame of a £70 million Van Gogh painting days before the F1 protest – were given suspended prison sentences of 12 months and six months respectively, both suspended for two years.

At the hearing in London, the protesters’ lawyers argued that only a “handful” of individuals were potentially put at risk by their actions, which did not amount to an impact on “a section of the public” as required by the public nuisance offence.

Nadesh Karu, representing Smith and Brocklebank, said Silverstone’s Wellington Straight, where the track invasion took place, was not open to the public.

The barrister said the cases were “fundamentally different to a protest that takes place on a public highway”, adding that prosecutors accepted the 115,000 spectators were not at risk of serious harm.

Race marshals were also not at risk of harm because they were not allowed to enter the track before it was safe to do so, the court was told.

Mr Karu said the track protest took place after the majority of cars had already passed by amid a red flag signalling drivers to slow down and head to the pit lane because of an earlier racing incident.

Simon Jones, for the Crown Prosecution Service, told the court that Mr Justice Garnham had properly rejected the protesters’ mid-trial argument that there was “no case to answer”.

“From the moment each individual jumped the first fence they were going into a dangerous prohibited area,” he said.

“There were clearly sections of the public who were at risk.”

Brocklebank, of Yeadon, Leeds; Gibson, from Aberdeen; McKechnie, from Manchester; and Smith, from Lees in Oldham, went on to the race circuit during the protest.

Baldwin, of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, who was the only member of the five to attend court on Wednesday, was found in a car park along with glue, cable ties and a Just Stop Oil banner and was said by prosecutors to have been “in it together” with his co-defendants.

His barrister Rabah Kherbane argued that he did not assist or encourage the other activists in getting onto the track.

At the trial jurors were shown personal video statements from the defendants recorded a day before the protest, including a claim that the world is “being destroyed for the benefit of a few people”.

The court was told that the protest action was designed to draw media attention to Just Stop Oil’s call for the Government to halt new fossil fuel extraction licences.

Bethany Mogie, from St Albans, aged 40 when convicted alongside the other protesters, withdrew her appeal before Wednesday’s hearing.

Lord Justice Holroyde said judges need to reflect on legal arguments, adding that the cases took the court into “new territory” over the interpretation of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.