Nineteen more Insulate Britain protesters will be go trial on Tuesday at the High Court over accused of breaking an injunction preventing the group’s protests on motorways.
National Highways was granted the injunction in September 2021 after demonstrators had blocked traffic on the M25.
A number of Insulate Britain members last year blocked the motorway, which encircles Greater London, on a number of occasions in locations in Essex, Hertfordshire, and Kent.
Eight protesters have been charged with contempt of court over the injunction breach, and the additional 19 appearing in court on Tuesday takes the total number of them to 27.
Contempt of court is a civil rather than criminal matter, but convictions can result in custodial sentences.
If convicted, the group face having to pay unlimited fines, having assets seized, or being sentenced to up to two years in prison.
Ten of the latest cohort of defendants that are part of the Insulate Britain group face court for the first time. Eight are returning for a second time, and one faces a third hearing – the group said.
Ben Taylor, 27, is one of the ones returning to court, and he has received the longest sentence handed down to an Insulate Britain protester for blocking the M25. He and eight others, were sentenced in November.
He was sentenced to six months at HMP Thameside. In two weeks, he will have served half the sentence and would be due for release. But the new High Court hearing could see him receive another sentence that could add to his time in prison.
Insulate Britain said that, even if the other defendants receive suspended sentences, they “understand that there is no legal precedent for a justice giving a suspended sentence to anyone currently in prison.”
Biff Whipster, 54, a retail worker from Canterbury, said: “It’s my second time in this court for breaching injunctions. Last time I asked the prosecution team to do the moral thing and close their laptops and bin their papers and walk away.
“Fifty days have passed since then. What a waste of intellect, skills and resources. Just imagine if that prosecution team were instead focussed on helping dig us out of this self-inflicted hole of climate and environmental collapse? It’s very sad.”
He added that, as a parent, he has “no choice” but to “sacrifice [his] liberty and [his] future for the next generation.”
Mr Whipster also said: “I’ve made a moral choice. It’s a case of watching this slow-burn genocide and destruction of our natural world unfurl, or resist.”
Last week, transport secretary Grant Shapps said that it “doesn’t make sense” for climate activists to glue themselves to roads when campaigning for better home insulation.
He said a lot of environmental protesters are “anarchists” who “just want to find a basis upon which to take extremist action”.
Mr Shapps told the Centre Write magazine, from the centre-right think tank Bright Blue, that people should not even “try to understand” such tactics.
He said: “Unsurprisingly there’s a little loophole in the law that makes it difficult to directly prosecute people gluing themselves to the road. That is being fixed through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.”
Last week, Downing Street defended measures to tackle protesters’ “guerrilla tactics” after peers gutted the legislation with a series of defeats for the Government.
Home secretary Priti Patel accused peers of siding with “vandals and thugs” after a string of defeats saw the House of Lords reject measures designed to tackle protests by groups including Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion.
No 10 said the government could use its Commons majority to overturn the defeats inflicted by the Lords.
