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, an environmental activist who was one of the founding members of the group, agreed to causing disruption to traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway for four successive days in November 2022.
The 58-year-old was joined by Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin, 22, as they were all sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.
Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the remaining four defendants were each handed four years’ imprisonment.
Apparently, a journalist from the Sun recorded one of their planning sessions and gave it 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.
The caterwauling on the Just Stop Oil account on X is a fun read.
Roger Hallam gives a harrowing hilarious account of the proceedings.
H/T strativarius, fraizer, j-boles
It’s a shame they weren’t prosecuted under our anti terrorism laws.
I remember a time when those practicing civil disobedience* understood that there would likely be consequences to their actions. Today’s protestors think they should be able to do anything they want without consequence. (See the pro-palestine crowd)
* Whether you agree or not, THEY believe they are which is sufficient for my point.
Doesn’t even know the difference between carbon and CO2.
Civil disobedience of this sort without risk is just calorie-free virtue signaling at other people’s expense.
If I were the judge, I would have imposed a 5-year sentence of living a real carbon-free existence, and then a 20 page report on what it was like.