Consequences: Five Just Stop Oil Cultists Sent To Jail In England

Looks like the judge pretty much threw the book at them

Five Just Stop Oil activists receive record sentences for planning to block M25

Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s orbital motorway have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms by a judge who told them they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.

Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

Hallam received a five-year sentence on Thursday, while the other four were each sentenced to four years.

The sentences are thought to be the longest sentences even given in the UK for non-violent protest, exceeding those given to the Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland (three years) and Marcus Decker (two years and seven months) for scaling the Dartford Crossing.

The actions may have been “non-violent” but they caused major disruptions, interfered with many other people, and broke numerous laws

(Judge) Hehir admitted there was a scientific and social consensus that human-made climate breakdown was happening and action should be taken to avert it. “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns motivating you are, at least to some extent, shared by many,” he said.

“But the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law.

“And your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”

Too bad the judge didn’t call them cult members. Regardless of whether anthropogenic climate change is real or not, that doesn’t give them the right to engage in a criminal conspiracy.

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