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Five Just Stop Oil protesters who were jailed for planning to block the M25 motorway have appealed against their record sentences.
Roger Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, has been sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a “sophisticated” plan to disrupt traffic on the M25.
Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin, who were also involved in the plan, were sentenced to four years in prison. The sentences are believed to be the longest ever imposed in the UK for non-violent protest.
Their plan to close the M25 was partially successful and, according to Judge Christopher Hehir in his verdict, resulted in a total of 50,856 hours of delays for road users and economic costs of £769,966.
Those affected, the jury heard, included a patient suffering from an aggressive form of cancer who missed his appointment and had to wait another two months, and a child with special needs who forgot his medication on the way to school.
Environmental activists such as Chris Packham condemned the long prison sentences, saying they were a “direct theft of our freedom”.
UN Special Rapporteur Michel Frost said the verdict was neither appropriate nor proportionate and served no “legitimate public purpose”.
Actors, musicians and religious leaders such as former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams have asked the Attorney General for an urgent meeting to discuss the detention of climate activists.
The lawyers of the activists known as the “Five of the Whole Truth” will argue in the appeal that the sentences were massively excessive.
A Just Stop Oil spokesman said: “The Whole Truth Five, along with others, have done their best on the evidence to prevent catastrophic and irreversible harm to the public and life on Earth. Judge Hehir’s imagined ‘chilling effect’ is both cynical and naive.”
