16 Just Stop Oil supporters are appealing their draconian sentences at the Court of Appeal today and tomorrow. The mass appeal concerns 16 political prisoners with combined sentences of 41 years handed down between July and September 2024. They are known as the Lord Walney 16.
On Thursday, the second day of the hearing, at noon, the campaign group Defend Our Juries will stage a lawful and peaceful protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice to highlight the wrongful silencing and jailing of the political opponents of the arms and oil industries.
A spokesperson for the Met Police said:
We’re aware of plans for a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Officers will be deployed in the area to ensure any incidents are swiftly dealt with.
People gathered on the first day of the appeal:
The Lord Walney 16: a travesty
All 16 Just Stop Oil supporters were jailed in the months following the publication of a report to the government written by a paid lobbyist for the oil and arms industry that called for groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action to be banned in a similar way to terrorist organisations. John Woodcock, formerly a Labour MP and now a crossbench peer, published a report on ‘political violence’ in May 2024, which was falsely presented to the public and Parliament as ‘independent’.
The appeal concerns the four and five year prison sentences handed down in July 2024 to Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam and four co-defendants for taking part in a Zoom call to discuss a planned protest on the M25. It also includes the 20 month sentence imposed on 78 year old grandmother Gaie Delap and four co-defendants who carried out the M25 gantry protest in November 2022, as well as the 18 month to 3 year sentences imposed on four supporters who dug and occupied tunnels under a road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Essex in August 2022.
Also under review are the sentences imposed by Judge Hehir on the “soup throwers” Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland. They were sentenced to two years and twenty months respectively after they threw soup at the glass covering Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in October 2022, leaving the painting unharmed.
Just Stop Oil says…
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
Our broken political system is on trial today. This case is not about whether peaceful climate defenders deserve to be punished with long prison sentences. It is about whether it is acceptable in a democracy to allow wealthy fossil fuel executives to dictate our laws, pervert our criminal justice system and silence all opposition to their destructive and harmful business.
Just Stop Oil supporters in prison are political prisoners. They are not there because they disrupted or harmed everyday people – if that were the case, the water company bosses, Post Office execs and those responsible for the Grenfell disaster would be behind bars. No, they are there because Just Stop Oil threatens the profits of the fossil fuel industry.
We say to the government you can lock us up but more people will take our place as the extreme consequences of climate breakdown become more apparent. We will not be deterred, we are more afraid of the collapse of ordered civil society than arrest and imprisonment. We are acting in self-defence and to protect our families and communities. We refuse to be bystanders to the ultimate crime against humanity and life on earth.
A two-day appeal
The appeal will be heard by the most senior Judge in England and Wales, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Mr Justice Lavender and Mr Justice Griffiths. The 16 are represented by Danny Friedman KC and Brenda Campbell KC. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are supporting the group with written submissions to the courts and up to 1,000 supporters are expected to show solidarity by gathering outside the court tomorrow.
The outcome of the appeal could be decided any time from a few days to eight weeks following the hearing.
At the trial of the ‘Whole Truth Five’, Judge Hehir ruled that climate issues were ‘irrelevant and inadmissible’, dismissing them as mere ‘political opinion and belief. He handed down a sentence of five years to Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam, while Daniel Shaw, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu , Louise Lancaster and Cressida Gethin were each sentenced to four years. Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur has previously described these sentences as ‘not acceptable in a democracy’.
Also among the group of 16 is Gaie Delap, the 78-year-old grandmother, who was recalled to prison just before Christmas, because SERCO failed to provide a tag that could fit a woman’s wrist. Gaie was sentenced, alongside four co-defendants, to twenty months imprisonment in August 2024 for her part in an action on the M25 in November 2022. Four (including Gaie) were released early, three of whom have been successfully tagged.
Labour: complicit in the injustice
On day one, Wednesday 29 January, BBC News reported that:
Danny Friedman KC, one of several lawyers representing the group, said some of the sentences were “the highest of their kind in modern British history”.
He said that if the terms were allowed to stand, it would mark a “paradigm shift in this area of criminal law sentencing”.
The court was told the protesters “acted in the knowledge that they would be prosecuted”, but “none of the applicants acted out of self-interest”.
Mr Friedman said: “What these applicants did by way of collective, non-violent protest, whether one likes it or not, was for the interests of the public, of the planet, and of future generations.”
“They did what they did out of sacrifice,” he added.
The Labour government continues to present Lord Walney to the public as ‘independent’, encouraging judges to act on his recommendations. Despite a previous commitment by the Home Office to review his role by the end of October 2024, Lord Walney remains in position. Prior to Lord Walney’s report in May 2024, jail sentences for peaceful protest in Britain were unusual.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
