Just Stop Oil founder jailed for record five years over M25 motorway protest

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Five Just Stop Oil protesters, including one of its co-founders, have been handed record jail terms over protests that blocked the M25 motorway.

Roger Hallam, 58, Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin, 22, agreed to cause disruption to traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway for four successive days in November 2022.

JSO co-founder Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years’ imprisonment.

The sentences, thought to be the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protest, exceed those handed to fellow Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, who scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the Dartford Crossing in 2022, when they were jailed at Southend Crown Court last April.

Prosecutors said the M25 protests, which saw 45 people climb up the gantries, led to an economic cost of at least £765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was more than £1.1 million.

They allegedly 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 traffic caused by one of the protests on 9 November 2022, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.

Judge Christopher 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.”

All five defendants joined a Zoom call on 2 November 2022 in which discussions were held about the planned protests, based off “what was said expressly and what could be inferred”, and were aiming to recruit others for the protests on the call, Ms Ledward told the court.

A journalist from the Sun newspaper, who had joined the call pretending to be interested in the protest, managed to record some of it and passed the recordings on to the police.

Judge Christopher Hehir said the Zoom call showed “how intricately planned the disruption was and the sophistication involved”, and was “compelling evidence” of the existence of a conspiracy.

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, shouted “we love you” from the dock immediately after the sentences were passed down.

The judge told the court 11 protesters were arrested on suspicion of contempt outside the court during the case’s trial on 2 July, but the court had discontinued its proceedings against them on 11 July after he became “concerned” about their position.

There have been no protests on the M25 since November 2022.

Just Stop Oil has gained a reputation for protest stunts, which included covering Stonehenge with orange powder the day before Summer Solstice this year.

Amnesty International UK expressed “alarm” over the sentences, calling them “indefensible”.

“These lengthy jail sentences for people seeking climate justice should increase the alarm over the ongoing crackdown against peaceful protest in this country, which violates all our human rights,” Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights adviser, said.

“With our overcrowded prison system already described as a ‘ticking time bomb’ by the new lord chancellor, these jail terms are all the more indefensible.

“Today’s draconian sentences and the manner in which the trial was conducted show that the hardline anti-protest approach adopted by the previous government is being emulated by the courts. People should never be punished more harshly for engaging in protest than they would for an equivalent non-protest offence.”