Record five-year jail term for Just Stop Oil’s founder
Roger Hallam, who was jailed alongside three other activists, was handed the longest sentence yet for non-violent protest.
The founder of Just Stop Oil has received the longest-ever jail sentence for nonviolent protest under new laws designed to crack down on public disruption.
Roger Hallam, 58, was jailed for five years for co-ordinating the protests that disrupted the M25 in London over four days in 2022. Forty-Five protesters climbed gantries on the motorway, forcing police to stop the traffic.
Daniel Shaw, 38, from Northampton, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, from Derby, Louise Lancaster, 58, from Cambridge, and Cressida Gethin, 22, from Hereford, were each sentenced to four years after being found guilty of conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
The sentences, handed down at Southwark crown court in London, were longer than those given to Just Stop Oil activists who scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge over the Dartford Crossing in October 2022. They were condemned as a “gross miscarriage of justice” by environmental campaigners last night (Thursday).
The group were sentenced under controversial legislation introduced by the previous government to get tougher on disruptive tactics used by environmental protesters, including blockading roads and attacks on sporting events. A 13-week campaign by Just Stop Oil (JSO) last summer cost the Metropolitan Police more than pounds 7.7 million, the equivalent cost of 23,500 officer shifts.
The legislation, which provides for stiffer sentences for protesters who block roads, was backed by Sir Keir Starmer, now the prime minister. But it was condemned by the United Nations human rights commissioner as “deeply troubling” and “disproportionate”.
Last night (Thursday) prominent environmental campaigners, including the millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince and the broadcaster Chris Packham, criticised the sentencing of the so-called Whole Truth Five.
Vince, who has donated almost pounds 1.4 million to the party since 2014, said it “can’t be right” that protesters were jailed in the same week that it was announced that prisoners would be released early to ease the crisis in the country’s prisons. He said that the sentence made the UK akin to “North Korea or Russia”.
The court was told that the M25 protests caused economic damage of pounds 765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was over pounds 1.1 million.
The protests are also said to have affected more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 “compromised” for more than 120 hours.
Jocelyn Ledward KC, for the prosecution, told the court that the five defendants had joined a Zoom call in which they discussed the planned protests and were aiming to recruit others.
An undercover reporter for The Sun who joined the call pretending to be interested in the protest recorded part of the discussion and passed this to the police, who then arrested the activists.
In sentencing, Judge Christopher Hehir told the activists: “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.”
Judge Hehir told Hallam: “You are the theoretician, the ‘ideas’ man. In my judgment, you sit at the very highest level of the conspiracy.”
In a statement on his website Hallam said that the sentence was the work of a “kangaroo court”.
The trial was criticised by Michel Forst, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, who described the threat of a long sentence against Daniel Shaw as potentially unlawful. Speaking on the eve of the first day of the trial, Forst warned: “The imposition of such sanction is not only appalling but may also violate the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law.”
The Times
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