The Whole Truth Five (from left to right) Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, Cressida Gethin, Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw and Roger Hallam
FIVE Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists who were given record jail time after attending a Zoom call formally launched an appeal against the sentences, legal charity Plan B Earth announced today.
Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were imprisoned for co-ordinating a peaceful action on the M25 over Zoom in November 2022.
The action aimed to press the government to halt new oil and gas licences, something that has since been implemented by Labour since it took office.
They were convicted of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” under the Tories’ draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.
Mr Hallam, co-founder of JSO, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment — the longest for a peaceful action in Britain — while the four others were each jailed last month for four years.
So far, those convicted for their part in racist riots over the last weeks have been sentenced to between two months and three years in prison.
Roger Hallam, on trial for conspiring to block traffic on the M25 in 2022, said he wanted to ‘speak the whole truth’. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Getty
Accused speak out of turn about climate threat and challenge judge who orders jury to leave
There was chaos in the courtroom at a climate protest trial when two defendants stood and made statements defying the authority of the court.
At separate points during the trial on Thursday, Roger Hallam and Daniel Shaw, charged along with three others with conspiring to block traffic on the M25 in 2022, stood up in front of the jury and spoke out of turn.
Hallam, whose evidence was discontinued on Wednesday, stood up just as court got under way on Thursday and said: “I wish to communicate to the jury and the court that I was forcibly removed from the court yesterday for refusing to break my oath and speak the whole truth.”
Later on, while Louise Lancaster, a co-defendant, was in the witness box, Shaw, whose evidence was also discontinued on Wednesday, stood up from his place in the court and directly challenged the judge.
He said: “Climate change represents an existential threat to humanity. The court agrees with that. Why are you not trying the people causing this crisis?”
Each time the defendants continued speaking as the judge, Christopher Hehir, ordered the jury to leave the court.
Lancaster refused to submit to cross-examination by the prosecution, as Shaw and Hallam had done the previous day, prompting Hehir to discontinue her evidence.
Hehir told jurors: “Members of the jury, in your absence I had a discussion in open court with Miss Lancaster. In frank and straightforward terms she has told me she is not prepared to submit to cross-examination. In those circumstances her evidence is at an end.”
UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention and former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Michel Forst is attending the ongoing trial of five Just Stop Oil supporters at Southwark Crown Court today. He is attending as an observer because of his serious concerns.
The special rapporteur’s office released a statement on 24th June detailing his views regarding the criminal prosecution of Daniel Shaw in this trial. The statement can be read here.
The Aarhus Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, aims to promote environmental democracy by ensuring public access to information, participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters. The Special Rapporteur monitors the implementation of the convention’s provisions by its parties, ensuring compliance with obligations related to access to justice. Additionally, the Special Rapporteur investigates complaints from individuals or groups alleging violations of their rights under the Aarhus Convention, assesses specific cases, and makes recommendations to ensure compliance.
Daniel Shaw, Cressie Gethin, Lucia De-Abreu-Whittaker, Louise Lancaster and Roger Hallam are currently on trial at Southwark Crown Court, charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in connection with the M25 gantry actions in November 2022. They were arrested either pre-emptively in police raids at their homes after attending a Zoom call in which a Sun journalist was present, or arrested travelling near the M25 respectively. The Sun alleged it had ‘infiltrated’ the meeting and boasted of tipping off the police and enabling National Highways to secure a public injunction.
Some of these five were imprisoned for up to 113 days without trial. They were released subject to stringent conditions including a 10 pm to 7 am house curfew, not to be within a one-mile radius of the M25, no contact with other defendants and not to participate in any climate change demonstration.
In another trial involving Just Stop Oil supporters, which was the first under the new Public Order Act 2023 for a Section 7 offence, Judge Hehir who is overseeing the current proceedings barred all legal defences from the defendants and prohibited any mention of the climate crisis to the jury. This trial concluded with a conviction, and Judge Hehir is expected to sentence the defendants at a future date.
The plan is to present a live audio podcast entitled ‘Talking About a Revolution’ featuring renowned climate activist Roger Hallam and myself on 1st May 2024 at 7pm BST (GMT +1). We’re not proposing violent revolution, rather a serious huge economic, political and social transition away from Capitalism which is totally and incessantly destroying the planet.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Roger has been active in founding many climate activist groups e.g. Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil. Roger and myself are similar in many ways: We’re both about the same age, have Welsh histories, committed to being brutally honest and seem to have reached very similar conclusions i.e. the need for revolution, through different routes.
I’m also intending to host a live audio podcast a week earlier on 24 April at 7pm BST (GMT +1) featuring myself to test the tech since I’ve never done it before. There is a chance that it may not work of course which is part of why I’m doing it. It will likely be a monologue but I’m hoping to feature some special ‘guests’ in a not too serious programme. Not too serious because it’s probably a good response to laugh in the face of adversity.
Those of you who have attended universities will probably realise that they are are dumping grounds for insane but mostly harmless people who are basically fekking bonkers. I suggest that you should recognise that the same happens in contemporary politics: that politicans are totally fekking beserk who would not be tolerated in normal professions and have been successful in politics. Just consider our prime ministers FFS.
[ed: I did provide a link but it should be available to subscribers to https://rogerhallam.com only]
Earth, we have a problem
Societies around the world did not allow the current ecological collapse. Governments did. Since the 1990s, a false narrative was promoted around the world that individuals should take responsibility for their ‘carbon footprint’. Or that ‘it’s the corporations’, the fossil fuel and other polluting industries that are to blame. Yet governments are the only institutions with the power, and the responsibility, to protect us from harm. But they haven’t used that power.
In the UK and around the globe, people have inherited a government system and a civil society community of environmental NGOs unable to address the threat we now face to the continued existence of humankind. Government is something created by society to protect us from such threats. Yet it has failed.
We need to rescue the concept of revolution from left wing political ideology into a more classical 19th century tradition where we’ve had enough of corruption and the gross abuse of power. The challenge we face with the climate emergency is to promote the message that climate change affects us all and so we all need to act.
There is no avoiding the following analysis: that the world’s political systems which have facilitated a 60% increase in global emissions since the beginning of the crisis in 1990 have no ability to stop a continued rise in CO2,
let alone create the political will to massively reduce levels (40% in the next ten years according to the UN October report ).
This leads us to the grave conclusion that the probability of organising a political revolution to remove the corrupt political class has a higher chance (if small/indeterminate) than the chance that the political class will respond to the climate crisis (effectively zero, as evidenced by the last 30 years). This then is the central meta strategic point of this paper.
