Just after our last issue went to press, five members of the climate direct action group Just Stop Oil (JSO) received long prison sentences for attending an online meeting to discuss nonviolent disruptive protest. Their 2022 Zoom call had been recorded by a Sun reporter and passed to the police.
Greenpeace UK’s programme director Amy Cameron condemned the sentences, saying: ‘What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call? We’re giving a free hand to the polluting elite robbing us of a habitable planet while jailing those who’re trying to stop them – it makes no sense.’
Roger Hallam (57) was jailed for five years. Cressida Gethin (22), Louise Lancaster (58), Daniel Shaw (38) and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu (34) were each sentenced to four years in prison.
They were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. ‘Intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’ is a new offence created by section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022). The maximum sentence is 10 years.
The five were not allowed to put their justifications for their actions to the jury. Judge Christopher Hehir ruled that climate issues were ‘irrelevant and inadmissible’ ‘political opinion and belief’.
Professor Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, who the five were not allowed to call as an expert witness, said later: ‘The trial and verdict were a farce. They mark a low point in British justice and they were an assault on free speech. The judge’s characterisation of climate breakdown as a matter of opinion and belief is completely nonsensical and demonstrates extraordinary ignorance. Similarly, to suggest that the climate emergency is irrelevant in relation to whether the defendants had a reasonable case for action is crass stupidity.’