Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were sentenced to four years in prison on 18 July. The court found them guilty of organising protests on the M25 motorway in the UK. The fifth activist, Roger Hallam, was sentenced to five years by a judge who ruled that the man ‘was at the highest level of the conspiracy’.

In November 2022, 45 protesters from Just Stop Oil climbed motorway gantries, forcing police to halt traffic. The activists aimed to disrupt travel in southern England to highlight their demand for a transition away from fossil fuels, which they argue are worsening the climate crisis. The youngest convicted protester, Cressida Gethin, is 22, while Roger Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, is 58.

Prosecutors reported that the motorway was closed for over 120 hours, affecting 700,000 drivers. The police response cost £1.1 million (€1.3 million), and the economic loss to those caught in the traffic jam was estimated at £765,000 (€909,000). Louise Lancaster, representing herself in court, emphasised that the impact of climate change has brought humanity to a 'perilous and critical point'. She argued that 'all other means of democratic persuasion have failed'.

According to euronews.com, Judge Christopher Hehir ruled that climate issues were "irrelevant and inadmissible as evidence", dismissing them as "political opinions and beliefs." He instructed the jury to disregard all evidence related to the climate crisis and not to consider whether it constituted a "reasonable excuse" under the law. This stance has been compared to the 2021 film "Don't Look Up", which serves as a metaphor for many people's attitudes towards the impending climate catastrophe.

Numerous climate organisations have criticised high sentences for activists. Michel Forst, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, has joined the chorus condemning the multi-year prison sentences given for planning peaceful protests, calling them "not acceptable in a democracy."

On 19 July, public opinion in the UK on sentences for male activists was polled. An online survey conducted by Social Change Lab, a non-profit organisation researching protests and social movements, revealed that 61% of respondents felt the sentences given to the five protesters were ‘too harsh’. Conversely, 12% of those surveyed believed the sentences were too lenient.

Source: theguardian.com, euronews.com, bbc.com