Campaigners from Devon were among around 1,000 people who staged a peaceful protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday 30 January.
The Strand was closed to traffic as a 90-minute mass sit-in took place, patrolled by large numbers of police officers.
Inside the building, judges were hearing an appeal against the disproportionate jail sentences given to 16 Just Stop Oil activists in 2024 – a total of 41 years behind bars for non-violent environmental protests.
The sentences were imposed shortly after government law and order adviser Lord Walney recommended tougher penalties for ‘extreme protest groups’, who he said should be treated like ‘terrorists’. He also expressed concern about juries acquitting defendants after hearing that they broke the law for ‘progressive causes’ such as climate change.
Lord Walney is a paid lobbyist for companies representing the fossil fuel industry. The Just Stop Oil protesters were banned from talking about the climate crisis in court to explain their actions to the juries. It seems that there are double standards at work when it comes to influencing judicial decisions.
The sit-in was part of a peaceful rally outside the court building during the two days of the appeal hearing. Organisers Defend Our Juries said the aim was ‘to highlight, in a public and proportionate way, that what is occurring is the corruption of democracy and the rule of law’. The action was supported by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Celebrities including Chris Packham, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Billy Bragg and Jonathan Pie took part.
At noon on the second day the protesters silently walked down the Strand, holding placards calling for political prisoners to be freed, before taking their positions on the road in a mass act of civil disobedience.
‘Many of our friends are in jail’
Local activists who were there described a mood of peaceful solidarity with the jailed protesters, some of whom are known to them personally.
One XR Rebel from Exeter told West Country Voices:
“I think to me it was less of a protest and far more about putting ourselves on the line in the same way that so many of our friends, people we know, are, in jail or facing long sentences.
“There was a tremendous feeling of solidarity.”
He said shortly before the demonstration, one of the jailed protesters had joined a Zoom call with XR from their prison cell:
“What they really valued was the fact that we were doing things outside, that they weren’t forgotten in any way.”
The ‘Lord Walney 16’ are:
The ‘Whole Truth Five’: Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin: all jailed for conspiracy to cause public nuisance over plans for protesters to climb gantries on the M25 in November 2022. Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, while the other four were each handed four years.
George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell, Gaie Delap and Paul Sousek: imprisoned for between two years and 20 months for taking part in the M25 gantry protests.
Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett: jailed for between three years and 15 months after occupying tunnels dug under the road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex.
Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland: sentenced to two years and 20 months respectively for throwing soup on the glass covering of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery.
All these sentences were handed out between July and September 2024.
Following the jailing of the ‘Whole Truth Five’, the United Nations said their sentencing was ‘not acceptable in a democracy’.
Devon activist Gilly Robinson, who was at the sit-in, had been following their trial.
Gilly, based in Dawlish, a member of XR and Defend Our Juries, said:
“I’d sat outside Southwark Crown Court – one of 82 people – back in September, while five defendants appeared on trial there, charged with ‘conspiracy to cause public nuisance’.
“They had simply appeared on a Zoom call, open to the public – something so many of us have done. So I felt a real connection with Cressie Gethin, Daniel Shaw, Lucia De Abreu, Lou Lancaster and Roger Hallam, and the crazy custodial sentences handed down to them. These were the longest-ever sentences for nonviolent protest in UK history.
“Then there was fellow XR Devon Drummer, Paul Bell, studying for a PhD in climate science at Exeter University, who was all too aware how little time left there was to take action, having spent years learning exactly that from University tutors – then getting charged with trying to impart that information to road users mostly ignorant of just how perilous our situation is.“Paul is an extraordinary individual, a gentle peacemaker, doing their utmost best to prevent the suffering of fellow humans – so it cut deep when they were demonised with jail time for their compassion.
“And finally, Gaie Delap. Gaie, a 77-year-old retired teacher, had also been up on a motorway gantry alongside Paul, doing her darnedest to get the public to sit up and see the reality of climate collapse. The Gantries protestors served some time inside before being let out on licence, which involved wearing a police tag and needing to stay home under curfew.”
(In fact, Gaie was recalled to prison at the end of last year because Serco was apparently unable to find an electronic tag that would fit her ‘small wrists’. She was later fitted with a 15-cm wrist strap – a standard size – and released on home detention curfew on January 31).
Gilly added:
“So I sat on the road outside the Royal Courts of Justice for the ‘Whole Truth Five’, and for Paul, and for Gaie – and for all women with an average-sized wrist. I sat for my daughter, and my sisters, and my 90-year-old mother who will most likely see her days out before climate breakdown does its worst, but whose children and grand-children will not.”
Both of the local activists who spoke to West Country Voices said the police presence at the protest was heavy-handed at times.
The Exeter XR rebel said:
“The police were quite intimidating, constantly walking through the crowd, telling us we could be arrested any minute.”
Gilly Robinson said:
“About 10 minutes into the sit, I definitely thought I was up for arrest. The police – who were steadily working their way up and down the lines of sitters – were initially trying to encourage us to move over to the other side of the Strand, telling us almost apologetically that there was plenty of room to sit there, and that way we wouldn’t get arrested.
“Then this was upped to, ‘You can’t sit here; can you move, please? Conditions will be put in place making sitting on this side of the road unlawful – and then you’ll be committing an arrestable offence.’“I knew the law: we could sit quite legally for 90 minutes in peaceful protest on one side of the road, but if we blocked both sides of the road, we could potentially be found guilty of a Section 7 offence, of blocking national infrastructure – the Strand is an A-class road, so is included within this.
“But there was no way I was going to get up and move.
“So I stayed put, my back pressed against a fellow protestor’s back, head lowered – which means you get to see a lot of police officers’ black boots! – and knew that if I was to be arrested, it would be in the good company of hundreds of other like-minded people fighting for our democratic right to peaceful protest.
“And peaceful it was. A beautiful hush reigned over us, aside from the increasingly resigned monotone call of police officers repeating their request for us to move.”
Despite the threats made by the police – and accusations by some officers of ‘blocking the road for emergency vehicles’ – no order authorising multiple arrests was imposed. The 90-minute sit-in ended with applause from the crowd, and songs from the Climate Choir.
What happens now?
We don’t know when the Court of Appeal judges will announce their decision on the appeal; it could be any time in the next eight weeks. Their ruling, whichever way it goes, will set a legal precedent for the future sentencing of climate activists and other protesters – including several who are currently awaiting trial.
The Exeter XR rebel at the sit-in said: “All these people we know, it does make it for me very emotionally impactful.
“This is very real, it’s not a theoretical thing, it’s happening in our community now.”
The Crown Prosecution Service has argued that the tough sentences for the ‘Lord Walney 16’ should be upheld as a ‘deterrent’. But that won’t put an end to disruptive climate protests – it may just lead to a change in tactics. It won’t deter those who see imprisonment as a personal sacrifice and a way to show that the law is wrong.
Many people – whipped up by the right-wing media – are set in their beliefs that the ‘eco-zealots’ and ‘dangerous fanatics’ of the climate movement all deserve to be punished. The question is why the recommended penalties for non-violent acts of disruption were suddenly made so much harsher last year. The appeal against the Lord Walney 16’s sentences shifts the focus to the issue of justification – both for the offence and for the punishment.
If the climate protesters’ motivation for their actions is also the reason for their disproportionate jail sentences, why can’t that motivation be heard in court and reported by the media, to put their offences into context? Could it be because this would highlight the evidence that gives them the courage of their convictions?
Evidence is a decisive factor in the judicial system. The evidence of the climate crisis is devastatingly and increasingly clear, worldwide. How long can ‘shoot the messenger’ be seen as a credible response to it?
