The Just Stop Oil five: 'fanatics' or victims of anti-protest authoritarianism?
Climate protesters handed longest-ever prison sentences for peaceful protest
![Protesters stand outside Soutwark Crown court holding a large red banner that says 'stop jailing truth tellers'](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/5hpiSpUBP5JYC4bT7s4QFG-415-80.png)
"Finally", a judge who "has the guts to do what the British people have long wanted the judiciary to do", said Carole Malone in the Daily Express: "throw the book at those loony eco-activists who bring whole cities to a standstill".
At Southwark Crown Court last week, judge Christopher Hehir doled out the longest-ever prison sentences for peaceful protest, to five Just Stop Oil protesters. Roger Hallam, who co-founded the movement, was given a five-year term for conspiracy to cause public nuisance. His co-defendants, Daniel Shaw, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, Louise Lancaster and Cressida Gethin, got four years.
In November 2022, they had organised a demonstration in which more than 45 protesters climbed onto gantries on the M25 motorway, bringing it to a standstill. People could have been killed. As it was, some of those affected missed flights and funerals. An estimated 700,000 vehicles were delayed. The economic cost was calculated at £769,966, not counting the £1 million cost of policing.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Mass disruption of a different kind
If you think the M25 protest was disruptive, just wait until climate change really kicks in, said George Monbiot in The Guardian. Consider "what a sea surge, a flash flood, a windstorm or a rail-buckling, road-melting, bridge-jamming heat event can do to transport infrastructure".
The right to protest is the wellspring of democracy. Yet these people were tried "as though they were mindless vandals", and given sentences "of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt" – much longer than the average given for violence against the person (1.7 years). It would be shocking even if our prisons weren't so full that they're being emptied of violent criminals.
These sentences are "a logical outcome of Britain's authoritarian turn against protest", said Graeme Hayes and Steven Cammiss on The Conversation. In the past, protesters were treated leniently. But in recent years, new crimes have been created and crucial legal defences have been shut down. There is no lawful defence to the statutory offence of conspiracy to cause public nuisance, created by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which these five faced. So they were not allowed even to explain their motives to the jury.
'Quests for sainthood'
"Protesters have a right to protest," said Tony Dowson in The Critic. "They do not have a right to cause massive inconvenience and harm", which environmental protesters are increasingly doing. Besides, the sentences weren't that stiff, bearing in mind that all the defendants had prior convictions. Hallam had 13; in April, he received a suspended sentence for plotting to close Heathrow with drones.
The judge called him a "fanatic", said Will Lloyd in The Times. And he is. Hallam compares himself to Gandhi. He believes that a "global carbon elite" is planning to kill billions, and that Western societies will collapse within a decade.
Such views are, however, widespread on the environmental Left. We can expect many other Britons to end up on their own "Hallam-like quests for sainthood".
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Today's political cartoons - September 7, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - football widows, meddling kids, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Smoking ban: the return of the nanny state?
Talking Point Starmer's plan to revive Sunak-era war on tobacco has struck an unsettling chord even with some non-smokers
By The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: September 7, 2024
The Week's daily crossword puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Smoking ban: the return of the nanny state?
Talking Point Starmer's plan to revive Sunak-era war on tobacco has struck an unsettling chord even with some non-smokers
By The Week UK Published
-
Hizb ut-Tahrir: the Islamist group set to be banned by home secretary
Why Everyone's Talking About 'Party of liberation' that aims to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate to be proscribed a 'terrorist organisation' this week
By The Week UK Published
-
Speed limits: is 20 plenty?
Talking Point Many Welsh drivers are 'furious' at new limit, but pedestrians are 'far less likely to be killed'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Anti-racism policing unit is accused of racism
Speed Read Police Race Action Plan criticised for treating minority staff members as ‘troublemakers or difficult’
By Arion McNicoll Published
-
Menopause: a matter for the law?
Talking Point The Government has decided against making menopause a ‘protected characteristic’ under the Equality Act
By The Week Staff Published
-
Archie Battersbee: the laws of life and death
Talking Point After a painful legal battle to keep their son on life support, Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee were defeated
By The Week Staff Published
-
Did the Supreme Court really set back America's climate change fight?
opinion The sharpest opinions on the debate from around the web
By Peter Weber Published
-
‘Slapps’: the lawsuits that silence free speech
In Depth Inside the government’s plans to clamp down on use of courts by rich and powerful
By The Week Staff Last updated