Mother of jailed Just Stop Oil campaigner complains daughter will miss brother's wedding after she blocked M25

22 July 2024, 18:18

The mother of a Just Stop Oil campaigner has complained that her daughter will miss her brother's wedding after being jailed for blocking the M25 motorway.

Cathy Nelson protested her daughter Cressida Gethin's four-year sentence which "means she will not be present at her brother's wedding next summer."

Speaking outside court after the 22-year-old was jailed last week, Ms Nelson said her daughter had tried "polite routs to protest, persuade, and affect change... but saw that no one was paying attention."

The mother said Gethin had "no option" but to take action and block the motorway alongside the four other activists, who have been branded the Whole Truth Five by Just Stop Oil.

The quintet agreed to cause disruption to traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway for four successive days in November 2022, the court heard.

The campaign has since launched a petition and have written to the attorney general to demand an "immediate end to to the imprisonment of brave nonviolent political prisoners".

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Paying tribute to her daughter, Ms Nelson said: "She has always been unable to stand by when she sees injustice. She has the courage of a lion, and the moral compass that compels her to step forward when she sees wrong."

She continued: "Our politicians, our judiciary and our energy companies should be shocked and deeply embarrassed with how the court has dispensed its version of justice today."

Gethin was sentenced alongside four other Just Stop Oil protesters, including the co-founder, in what are thought to be the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protest.

She was jailed with Roger Hallam, 58, Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35.

Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while the remaining four defendants were each handed four years' imprisonment.

The sentences 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 October 2022.

The Court of Appeal was later told Trowland, who was given a three-year sentence, and Decker, who was jailed for two years and seven months, were given the longest terms given for a peaceful protest case in modern times.

Prosecutors alleged 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 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.

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.

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, spoke to confirm their names in court and shouted "We love you" from the dock immediately after the sentences were passed down.