As is by now widely known, five individuals acting under the auspices of Just Stop Oil were sentenced two days ago to sentences of imprisonment for (variously) four and five years, as a result of findings of guilt relating to charges of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance. The public nuisance in question was with regard to a plan to disrupt traffic on the M25 motorway round London by encouraging protestors to climb gantries over the motorway.

The media reportage

Views expressed in the media as to the appropriateness of the prison sentences handed down vary greatly depending on the newspaper reporting on the case. However, the usual suspects are incandescent regarding the outcome of the case, railing against what they claim is a profound injustice.

Chris Packham and Dale Vince, writing in the Guardian (naturally) tell us that we may find Just Stop Oil to be annoying, but they do not deserve to be in prison, and that a society that locks them up cannot be called democratic. “Complete madness”, they say. “It is a disgrace and a stain on our country that our courts have been co-opted to do the fossil fuel industry’s dirty work.” Apparently, they are guilty of nothing more than causing us ear ache and being annoying.

Then there’s Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the Aarhus Convention. He has issued a statement concerning the four year prison sentence handed down to Daniel Shaw, one of the five defendants in the case. According to Mr Forst:

The gravity of today’s sentencing decision becomes glaringly obvious when considering the act for which Mr. Shaw has been sentenced: Mr. Shaw participated in a Zoom call that discussed climate change and the organizing of a peaceful environmental protest. This is the factual basis for Mr. Shaw’s conviction and sentence for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”. Put differently, today’s ruling by Judge Hehir at Southwark Crown Court means that, in the United Kingdom, participation in a Zoom call that discusses peaceful protest – in Mr. Shaw’s case, to call for an end to the continued issuance of oil and gas licenses in the United Kingdom – exposes the participants of the call to the risk of a lengthy prison sentence…

...What happened to Mr. Shaw today is unacceptable, both from a legal and a societal standpoint. A young man has been sent to prison for four years due to his decision to come together with others to discuss how to prompt government action through entirely peaceful means to address the serious threats posed by the climate crisis. This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom. One must ask what comes next when an individual like Mr. Shaw who sought to exercise his right to peacefully raise his concerns about the existential threats posed by the climate crisis and the failure of his own government to take adequate steps in response is treated like a serious criminal and put behind bars for four years. Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.

Unlike Mr Forst, I did not attend the trial (he says he was there for two days), but I well remember the disruption caused by the protests organised by the defendants, and I have read the sentencing remarks made by His Honour Judge Christopher Hehir when explaining why he was handing down the prison terms of four and five years to the defendants.

The Court findings

Depending on one’s point of view, one might conclude that the Judge’s disinclination to allow the defendants to pontificate about their climate concerns during the trial, and to explain their motivation for acting as they did, was either a denial or justice, or a necessary measure to ensure that the trial remained focussed on the legal issues and did not descend to anarchy and chaos. Readers probably won’t be surprised to learn that I incline to the latter view, not least given that Roger Hallam is on record as saying that disruption is war, and when asked who the war is against, he replied “It’s a war against those people who are engaging in mass murder.” When asked for clarification as to who those people are, he said they were the global elites, and when pressed further, he refined his answer thus: “Well, practically speaking, in this country it means the UK government and the forces behind the UK government…”.

Given his history, those words, and his very clear statements during that BBC interview with Nick Robinson to the effect that Just Stop Oil protestors can expect to be arrested for their disruptive actions, my personal conclusion is that Mr Hallam and his co-defendants were likely to use the trial as yet another opportunity to cause disruption. Indeed, the Judge found that with the exception of one defendant only, they all embarked on a calculated campaign to disrupt the proceedings as far as they possibly could.

Other than with regard to criticisms surrounding the curtailing of the defendants’ right to pontificate at great (and I mean great) length as to their take on the “climate crisis” (sic) I am unaware of any suggestion that the trial was in any way unfair. All of the defendants understood in advance what was the charge against them. All were entitled to be legally represented. The facts were determined, not by the Judge, but by a jury of the defendants’ peers. It was the jury, not the Judge, who found them guilty of the offence with which they were charged. Furthermore, they have the right to appeal against errors in law which they may believe were made during their trial, and also to appeal against their sentences should they be unjust and in breach of sentencing guidelines. The offence of which they were convicted was passed by a democratically elected Parliament. It turns out that this isn’t Russia, Iran, China, or any of the other countries to which Mr Forst might more usefully direct his attention.

Having said that, I am a passionate believer in freedom of speech and the right to protest. I do, however, believe that in a civilised society we all owe a duty to each other, and it is reasonable that on’e right to protest is qualified so as not to impinge seriously on the lives of one’s fellow citizens. And, when one reads the Judge’s sentencing remarks, it turns out that the defendants did rather more than simply “come together with others to discuss how to prompt government action through entirely peaceful means to address the serious threats posed by the climate crisis” (per Mr Forst). They also did rather more than just give us ear ache or prove to be a bit annoying (per Messrs Packham and Vince).

The Judge tells us that the defendants’ plan was a sophisticated one to disrupt traffic on the M25. The location was chosen with care because if people climbed gantries at various locations on the M25 it could cause gridlock, not just on the M25, but on motorways and A roads linking to it, including the M40, M1, A1(M), M11, M20, M26, M23, M3 and M4, with four airports lying close by. They didn’t achieve the wholescale gridlock and disruption they sought to cause, but what they did achieve was bad enough. Over four days, roads were badly affected for a total of 121 hours and 45 minutes. Over 700,000 vehicles are thought to have been affected. Economic costs were assessed at over £3/4M and police costs at £1M. Members of the public were affected in a myriad of ways. People missed flights and funerals. Students missed mock exams. Students with special needs were adversely affected, and one missed his daily medication. A sufferer of aggressive cancer missed an appointment at a cancer clinic, and had to wait two months for another appointment. People were late to work. An HGV driver was unable to deliver £5,000 worth of food to a hospital. All of the defendants were found to have been intimately involved in the planning associated with the conspiracy.

When it came to the sentencing decision, the Judge could do little other than note that all of the defendants had “form”, and recent sentencing or cases against them mattered not to them – they very deliberately participated while knowing that (in some cases at least) they were breaching the terms of existing sentences or bail conditions. Mr Hallam has quite a history. He was convicted as a young man of offences related to direct action protest in 1987 and 1988. Since 2017 he has amassed another 11 convictions. Mr Shaw has one previous public order conviction. The Judge found that he was “up to his neck” in the conspiracy and was unimpressed by his disruptive behaviour during the trial. Ms DeAbreu has three previous convictions for offences of obstruction during direct action protests. Ms Lancaster has six previous convictions for offences committed in the course of direct action protest, and actually committed the offence in this case during the period of a suspended sentence given to her in connection with another case. Ms Gethin, although aged just 22, already has three previous convictions for offences committed during direct protest, and her conviction in case puts her in breach of a conditional discharge given to her in an earlier case.

Although the sentences handed down were for four years and five years (the latter in the case of Mr Hallam) as is normal the Judge made it clear that they will serve just half of the term in prison. And if I understand these things correctly any time already spent on remand will be deducted from the time they now spend in prison going forward.

Conclusion

The sentences are intended to punish, to protect the public from these people, and to deter others. Given that under the UK system, so long as they behave themselves in prison they will serve only half of the headline figures, in all of the circumstances, including the aggravating factors of breaching existing suspended sentences or the terms of a conditional discharge, plus disruptive behaviour during the trial, I don’t believe the sentences are excessive.

I do wonder if Messrs Packham, Vince and Forst would be quite so concerned if the defendants had been protesting against, say, the environmental devastation being caused by wind farms, or the economic damage being unleashed on the country by the mad net zero agenda. I hasten to add that I do not condone such behaviour whatever the cause. However, it does strike me that it’s the subject-matter behind the protests that has stirred up the celebrities and the United Nations, rather than the actual facts in the case.