UK | Environmental activists sentenced to 4 and 5 years in prison

(London) Five environmental activists from Just Stop Oil, including the group’s co-founder, were sentenced Thursday in London to 4 and 5 years in prison for organizing protests that blocked a motorway around London in November 2022.

“Each of you crossed the line some time ago from concerned activist to fanatic,” Judge Christopher Hehir said in delivering his judgment.

“You have proclaimed yourselves the sole arbiters of what should be done to combat climate change,” he added.

Roger Hallam, 57, one of the co-founders of Just Stop Oil (JSO) and Extinction Rebellion, has been sentenced to five years in prison.

“You are the theorist. […] “In my opinion, you are at the highest level of the conspiracy,” the judge told him.

Four other activists, aged 22 to 58, were sentenced to four years in prison.

They were convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance. During a Zoom meeting in November 2022, they had agreed to organise a protest to disrupt traffic on the M25 motorway that runs around London.

Dozens of JSO activists took part in the action and stood on gantries above the road for four days in a row. The police had to stop traffic.

According to the prosecution, the protests cost London police more than £1.1 million (C$1.95 million). More than 700,000 motorists were affected and the M25 was disrupted for more than 120 hours.

After the verdict, the group Just Stop Oil, which is calling on the government to suspend all new licenses and authorizations for oil and gas, denounced “an obscene perversion of justice.”

“This is a dark day for the right to protest, a pillar of our democracy,” Greenpeace responded.

The United Nations has previously criticised the “harsh” sentences handed down to environmental activists after two members of Just Stop Oil were sentenced to two and three years in prison for scaling the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge over the River Thames in Dartford, east London in April 2023.