In a defining moment for the climate crisis movement, Lady Justice Carr yesterday (Thursday 30 January) heard an extraordinary mass sentencing appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice on behalf of the ‘Lord Walney 16’. The 16 Just Stop Oil supporters were sentenced to a combined total of more than 41 years in 2024 for nonviolent environmental protest, after being banned from telling the jury why they were motivated to take the actions they did.
Lex Korte, spokesperson for the Free Political Prisoners campaign, said:
As the UN has made clear, these sentences violate basic principles of human rights, democratic freedoms and international law. What’s at stake in this hearing is not just the freedom of some courageous individuals. It’s the credibility of the British legal system and the lifeblood of democracy itself.
Lord Walney 16 in historic appeal
The prisoners include the ‘Whole Truth Five’, sentenced for four to five years each for participating in a zoom call about temporarily blocking the M25. These are the longest prison sentences ever handed down for nonviolent civil disobedience in the UK. This attracted widespread condemnation, within the UK and internationally, from respected figures such as the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who described this as:
a dark day for peaceful environmental protest.
The M25 gantry climbers, navigator tunnellers, and the two sunflowers make up the remainder of the Lord Walney 16. Xavier Trimmer-Gonzalez was also part of the navigator tunnellers group, but died in 2023 after taking his own life whilst on bail and under strict curfew and electronic monitoring.
77 year-old Gaie Delap was part of the gantry climber group. Her case attracted attention when she was forced to spend Christmas in prison because the corporation that supplies the probation service with electronic tags was unable to provide a device small enough to fit Gaie’s wrists.
Political corruption and cronyism in draconian sentences
The original sentences were handed down by controversial judge Christopher Hehir, who faced disdain earlier in 2024 for giving a suspended sentence to a police officer found guilty of serious sexual misconduct, and in 2023 for granting a child sex offender a suspended sentence.
The previous government’s ‘independent’ anti-extremism advisor Lord Walney, who has significant links to the oil and gas industry, called for peaceful civil disobedience groups, such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action, to be banned in a controversial report published in early 2024. Walney argued these nonviolent campaigners should be treated as organised criminals and terrorists. Earlier this month, Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch, accused the UK of “hypocrisy” and setting a “dangerous precedent” in its response to climate defenders.
Despite being suspended by the Labour Party in 2018, following allegations of sexual harassment, Lord Walney remains a senior government advisor under the current Labour administration.
Tim Crosland, spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, feels that political corruption and cronyism is at the heart of these draconian sentences for climate defenders:
He (Lord Walney) is embedded in the Home Office with Yvette Cooper … If we’ve got one ambition for these two days it’s to get the media talking about corruption.
Crosland views this mass sentencing appeal as:
immensely significant, and not just in the UK…we’re seeing the same drivers of repression in the fossil fuel lobby across Europe, and of course in the US…This appeal will really define the territory for anyone taking direct action, not just in the climate movement, but also for groups like Palestine Action, Sisters Uncut, Greenpeace…
Lady Justice Carr has previously argued that tough sentences for climate defenders are working, because they act as a “deterrent”, and deterring others from similar conduct is a “legitimate aim”. Crosland is not convinced by this:
Deterring people from trying to get the truth into the public domain?
We’re inviting Lady Justice Carr to look out the window during this sentencing appeal…This wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for the silencing and jailing of all these people.
‘Big Oil who should be behind bars’ – not peaceful protesters
Throughout the extraordinary two day hearing, supporters of Just Stop Oil and Defend Our Juries held a rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
On the first day, Caroline Lucas, former leader of the Green Party, told the crowd:
We’re here to say that it’s Big Oil who should be behind bars, not the heroes who have the courage to stand up for a liveable future. We’re here to say it’s the criminal polluters whose companies deliver climate breakdown who should be prosecuted, not those shining a spotlight on corporate crimes.
On the second day of the hearing, a mass civil disobedience action took place, with a thousand peaceful campaigners – including Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – sitting silently on the road outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
Just after 12pm, the protestors silently walked down the Strand, holding placard calling for political prisoners to be freed, before taking their positions on the road.
Within five minutes, dozens of Metropolitan Police officers swooped in and began questioning the silent activists one by one (the police had been made aware the action was to be held in silence). Many of the activists ignored the officers, who repeatedly threatened them with arrest if they did not ‘move on’, but some decided to speak.
A dignified lady, who appeared to be in her sixties, calmly told an officer, who asked her to explain why she was here:
Because I have a right to protest, under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act.
The officer responded:
You do have that right, however under Section 14 of the Public Order Act, the condition that’s been placed on your protest is that you must move to the area on this map.
The officer held up a map to the lady, told her repeatedly to move to a bus lane, and threatened her with arrest. Eventually, the officer gave up and left her alone. A few minutes later, a different police officer confirmed for the Canary that a Section 14 order had in fact not been authorised.
Met Police response ‘out of proportion’
Throughout the 90-minute event, the Metropolitan Police asked the peaceful protestors to move hundreds of times. Some of the officers were polite, others seemed to harass the protestors. Not a single protestor moved; and not a single arrest was made.
Campaigners taking part in the action told the Canary they felt the police response was:
out of proportion – they’re just trying to diminish the impact of what we’re doing.
One protestor said the police “barged past me without apologising” and that they approached the crowd “like troops”.
At the end of the 90 minutes, hundreds of campaigners stood up and clapped. The climate choir movement had arrived and began to quietly sing peace songs at the entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice.
Feature image and additional images via Kate Bermingham
