Hefty prison sentences for M25 Just Stop Oil protesters

Five “fanatical” climate protesters have been jailed for plotting to cause disruption by blocking the M25 motorway, with prison sentences of up to five years.

Britain’s busiest motorway was brought to a halt for four days in November 2022 when as many as forty-five Just Stop Oil activists climbed gantries and planted themselves in the middle of the road, despite a High Court injunction obtained by National Highways which banned such actions.

Aside from the disruption to businesses and individuals across the South East, prosecutors told the court the dangerous acts of those involved caused two lorries to collide, and a police motorcyclist to fall off of his bike and suffer a concussion while he was trying to create a rolling roadblock. The protests are said to have had an economic impact of more than three-quarters of a million pounds, while the preventative action by the Metropolitan Police is believed to have cost the taxpayer over £1 million.

Drivers reported queuing for miles while protestors glued themselves to the road, requiring specialised teams of ‘de-bonders’ to remove them. The protests are estimated to have caused more than 50,000 hours of delays, with one person tweeting that their surgeon friend had been forced to cancel a cancer clinic due to being caught up in the melee.

Judge Christopher Hehir told the court that Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic” when they attended a Zoom meeting in which they planned the protests and attempted to recruit others to their cause.

Hallam, a co-founder of Just Stop Oil, as well as the protest group Extinction Rebellion, was dubbed the “ideas man” and received the harshest sentence of five years in prison after being arrested three times for disobeying court orders. Shaw, the chairman of the aforementioned Zoom call, was described as “up to his neck” in the planning of the demonstration, while Lancaster rented a safe house for protestors and Whittaker de Abreu and Gethin were arrested donning climbing gear ready to ascend the motorway gantries – all four were given a sentence of four years in jail.

The sentencing follows a ruling last week by a jury that all five protestors, referred to as the Whole Truth Five by Just Stop Oil, were found to have conspired to intentionally cause a public nuisance. During the hearings, 11 more demonstrators were arrested and charged with contempt of court after having been encouraged by Hallam to protest outside the courtroom. 

The new Public Order Act 2023, which came into effect earlier this year, gives police more power to clamp down on disruptive protests such as this. Those who have previously been known to cause disruption can now be subject to Serious Disruption Prevention Orders, which can impose restrictions designed to prevent them from causing further chaos.

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