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Severity of Just Stop Oil prison sentences causes a stir

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London, UK
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Five supporters of the JSO climate campaign have just been handed the longest jail terms ever meted out in the UK for a non-violent demonstration. This has sent shock waves through the protest community and wider British public, who consider the punishment to be too harsh.

In November 2022, forty-five Just Stop Oil protestors climbed gantries on the M25, forcing police to stop traffic.

Their aim was to cause gridlock across southern England so that the UK government would meet JSO’s core demand of reconsidering its decision to issue fresh licenses for oil and gas extraction in Great Britain and ending raw material exploration in the North Sea.

‘Take the necessary first step to ensure a liveable future and halt new oil and gas,’ they said at the time.

‘The government’s failure to do so is a criminal dereliction of its fundamental duty – to protect and safeguard the lives of its citizens. The supporters of Just Stop Oil are now the people upholding law and order and protecting civil society. Under British law, people in this country have a right to cause disruption to prevent greater harm – we will not stand by.’

Almost two years later, and five of those involved in the disruption have been sentenced to unprecedented jail terms by judge Christopher Hehir who said they had ‘crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.’

The sentences are the longest ever meted out in the UK for a non-violent demonstration and were made possible by the new ‘intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’ law that was introduced in 2022.

They mark the continuation of a state crackdown on peaceful protests, with the UK government bringing in a plethora of new police powers to tackle direct action in recent months.

Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam (58) was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while Daniel Shaw (38), Louise Lancaster (58), Lucia Whittaker de Abreu (35), and Cressida Gethin (22) were each sentenced to four.

All were found guilty of ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022’ after they appeared on a Zoom call to recruit potential volunteers for the ‘biggest disruption in British modern history,’ which, according to the prosecution, led to a ‘national economic loss’ of almost £750,000.

Though Judge Hehir admitted there was a scientific and social consensus that human-made climate breakdown is happening and action should be taken to avert it, he ruled that the crisis was ‘irrelevant to the trial’ – dismissing it as mere ‘political opinion and belief’ – and that evidence about climate change could play no part in the defendants’ defence.

This has highlighted a ‘deeply concerning’ pattern that forbids protestors from citing the environmental emergency as their motivation for taking a stand and thus narrows their rights to free expression.

Many have responded to the most recent example of this – Hehir ruled that the jury should not take into account evidence about climate breakdown, which the defendants said provided them with a reasonable excuse for their actions  – with alarm, calling the sentencing an ‘obscene perversion of justice’ and an ‘irresponsible erosion of human rights.’

In a poll conducted by Social Change Lab, a think-tank researching the effectiveness of protest movements, 61 per cent of respondents from the British public said they believed the sentences were too harsh, just 12 per cent felt the sentences were too lenient, while 27 per cent thought they were proportionate.

Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, said in a statement: ‘today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest in the UK.’

‘This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.’

‘Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.’

Despite this, however, experts warn that harsher punishments appearing to be serious deterrents against the kind of activism that Just Stop Oil has become famous for will have the opposite intended effect.

They say that activists committed to fighting climate change have ‘priced in’ the risk of arrest and imprisonment, and that harsh punishments could in fact spur others on to renewed and radical disruptive action.

‘I want to remind the court once more that my reasons for taking action were not beliefs or opinions,’ said Gethin, who offered her comments in mitigation.

‘Earth’s life-support systems are breaking down due to human activities, whether we believe it or not.’

Feature Media Manager & Senior Writer London, UK

Sofia (She/Her) – I’m the Deputy Editor & Media Partnership Manager at Thred, specialising in exclusive articles and live interviews, fashion and beauty with a focus on sustainability, women’s rights, psychedelics, and Latin America. I studied Spanish at the University of Exeter and International Journalism at City, London. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and drop me some ideas/feedback via email.

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