Five Just Stop Oil eco-activists jailed over M25 protest

1 August 2024, 17:44

Five Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for their role in disruption that saw eco-protesters halt traffic on the M25.

Judge Shane Collery KC accused the defendants of causing “many hours of delay” and branded their actions “disproportionate” to their aims.

According to the judge, on November 9 2022, the eco-activists set out to "create mass disruption so Just Stop Oil would benefit from the media interest it would create".

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

This decision comes just days after a different five Just Stop Oil activists, including the group’s co-founder, were jailed for their role in the same protest.

Read more: ‘Their protests are pathetic’: Armed forces minister slams Just Stop Oil as founder given five-year prison sentence

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Judge Collery KC noted that an accident occurred near the disrupted area of the M25 and the protesters were "fortunate more accidents did not occur".

Basildon Crown Court heard on Thursday that all five activists were retired, unemployed or recent graduates.

He said: "It's easy to be blase and dismissive when it's not your life that's being disrupted.”

The judge branded the protests "perhaps a curious way of seeking to influence the public opinion".

And said protesters "considered you knew better than everyone else.”

While the five defendants were not the organisers of the M25 protest, the judge described them as "willing volunteers".

He told the defendants: "You are all intelligent people and more than capable of working out why you're in this position and what you need to do to avoid it."

All five eco-activists pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance.

George Simonson, 24, of Leeds, and 26-year-old Theresa Higginson of Biggleswade, Bedfordshire were sentenced to two years behind bars.

Simonsen reportedly smiled and waved to the public gallery as he was led to the cells.

Paul Bell, 24, of Exeter, was jailed for one year and 10 months while Gaie Delap, 77 and Paul Sousek, 73 will both spend one year and eight months behind bars.

A sixth defendant, Daniel Johnson, 25, was spared jail.

The judge said: "I'm prepared to accept the remorse expressed as genuine."

He described Johnson as the "only defendant with a realistic prospect of rehabilitation".

This comes less than two weeks after Five Just Stop Oil members - including one of its co-founders - were jailed for between four and five years for conspiring to organise protests that blocked the M25.

They made plans for protestors to climb onto overhead gantries for four days in November 2022.

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 - who also co-founded Extinction Rebellion - was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years' imprisonment.

The environmental group described the sentences as a "obscene perversion of justice".

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.

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.