Five Just Stop Oil protesters, including one of its co-founders, have been jailed for conspiring to organise 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.
Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years’ imprisonment.
Prosecutors alleged the 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 also 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 November 9 2022, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.
The sentences are thought to be the longest sentences ever given in the UK for non-violent protest, the Guardian reports, beating those given to Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker for scaling the Dartford Crossing.
At the sentencing at Southwark Crown Court, 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.”
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.
They were greeted by Just Stop Oil supporters as they were driven from prison to Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.
All five defendants joined a Zoom call on November 2 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.
On the call, Hallam reportedly said they intended to cause “the biggest disruption in British modern history” as the climate group repeated calls for the Government to end to new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
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.
In a statement on Thursday Just Stop Oil said the five were sentenced to jail for “nothing more than attending a Zoom call”.
The judge told the court 11 protesters were arrested on suspicion of contempt outside the court during the case’s trial on July 2, but the court had discontinued its proceedings against them on July 11 after he became “concerned” about their position.
There have been no protests on the M25 since November 2022.
