‘Their protests are pathetic’: Armed forces minister slams Just Stop Oil as founder give five-year prison sentence

19 July 2024, 09:51

Luke Pollard condemns Just Stop Oil's tactics

By Kieran Kelly

@kellyjourno

Just Stop Oil's 'pathetic' protests are turning people away from the environmental cause, the Armed Forces minister has told LBC .

Five Just Stop Oil members - including one of its co-founders - were jailed for between four and five years for conspiring to organise protests that blocked the M25 on Thursday.

They made plans for protestors to climb onto overhead gantries for four days in November 2022.

Roger Hallam, 58, Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin, 22, agreed to cause disruption to traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway for four successive days in November 2022.

Hallam - who also co-founded Extinction Rebellion - was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years' imprisonment.

The environmental group have described the sentences as a "obscene perversion of justice".

Reacting to the sentencing, Luke Pollard said: “What Just Stop Oil have done has been ridiculous, their protests have been pathetic,” Mr Pollard told LBC.

“As someone who cares deeply about the environment, my frustration with their tactics is that it doesn’t take people with them.

“They are trying to make an argument and in doing so they are turning people away from the cause.”

Prosecutors alleged the protests, which saw 45 people climb up the gantries, led to an economic cost of at least £765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was more than £1.1 million.

They also allegedly caused more than 50,000 hours of vehicle delay, affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 "compromised" for more than 120 hours.

A police officer suffered concussion and bruising after being knocked off his motorbike in traffic caused by one of the protests on November 9 2022, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.

'Fanatic'

Sentencing at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Christopher Hehir said: "The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.

"You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change."

The defendants, referred to as the Whole Truth Five by Just Stop Oil on social media, shouted "We love you" from the dock immediately after the sentences were passed down.

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All five defendants joined a Zoom call on November 2 2022 in which discussions were held about the planned protests, based off "what was said expressly and what could be inferred", and were aiming to recruit others for the protests on the call, Ms Ledward told the court.

A journalist from the Sun newspaper, who had joined the call pretending to be interested in the protest, managed to record some of it and passed the recordings on to the police.

Just Stop Oil have slammed the jailings on social media.

"Stop jailing those telling the truth" they said in a tweet with an image of the group nicknamed the #WholeTruthFive.

Earlier today, the environmental group tweeted a video of the group on trial arriving at court.

The video shows them arriving at Southwark Crown Court in a prison van to applause and cheers from other activists who then knock on the sides of the van.

Ahead of the sentencing, environmentalist and TV presenter Chris Packham said: "Our prisons are overflowing , yet 5 peaceful protestors have been remanded awaiting sentences for protesting climate breakdown . . . here's a radical idea– stop jailing protestors . They're not the fire , they're raising the alarm !"

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