Just Stop Oil Co-Founder, Four Others, Jailed for Their Highway Blocking Antics
“JSO co-founder Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years’ imprisonment.”
The last time we checked on the eco-extremist group, Just Stop Oil, members had just sprayed Britain’s iconic Stonehenge with an orange substance.
This comes after Great Britain and Europe has been subjected to their aggressive, highway-blocking antics and their attacks on masterpieces of Western Civilization.
I suspect the attack on Stonehenge, which is near and dear to the heart of many Brits, may have been one stunt too many. The tide of justice is now turning, and sweeping up one of the heads of the organization and four others in its wake.
The eco-disruptors have now earned the longest sentences for “peaceful protests” ever handed out in the United Kingdom.
Five Just Stop Oil protesters, including one of its co-founders, have been handed record jail terms over protests that blocked the M25 motorway.
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.
JSO co-founder Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other four defendants were each handed four years’ imprisonment.
The sentences, thought to be the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protest, exceed those handed to fellow Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, who scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the Dartford Crossing in 2022, when they were jailed at Southend Crown Court last April.
The magnitude of the disruption of the 2022 highway blockage and injury to a police officer were contributing factors in determining these sentences.
Prosecutors alleged the 2022 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 (around $1.4 million), PA reported.
The protest 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, prosecutors also alleged, according to PA. The judge said that the activists “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.”
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC noted that 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, PA reported.
The judge and the prosecutor were harsh considering the climate zealot co-founder, Hallam, had previous arrests for his insanity.
Judge Christopher Hehir said there had been “an unprecedented level of deliberate disruption” and suggested Hallam, who he said was arrested three times, tried to “turn the trial into a piece of direct action protest”.
Protesters who held placards outside the court were also arrested for alleged contempt of court, though Hehir said the proceedings against the 11 who were arrested had been dropped.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said the economic cost of the protests was at least 770,000 pounds ($1 million) and caused delays for thousands of people.
Hehir said that “this was a conspiracy to cause extreme and disproportionate disruption”, adding: “Each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.
“You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters about what should be done about climate change.”
I feel very bad for the 22-year-old, who is facing jail time as the real and serious consequence of being brainwashed by this cult and its eco-guru. She is just one of many of the young people whose lives have been damaged and their future ruined by believing the fear-filled fantasies of delusional climate cult leaders.
I hope the more robust punishments for “peaceful protests” persuade others that these dangerous and destructive stunts aren’t effective and need to end.
I will end this post with an upbeat update to the Stonehenge story. The orange powder has been safely removed, the structure is undamaged, and the site was open for the Summer Solstice.
English Heritage chief executive, Dr Nick Merriman, said there appeared to be “no visible damage” to the 5,000-year-old landmark after experts cleaned the site.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Dr Merriman also confirmed the site would be open for summer solstice celebrations as normal from 19:00 BST on Thursday.
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Comments
Just Stop Oil benefits to them as punishment. How long will they last?
Well, that’s a start. Personally, I think that the fact that they physically arrested a woman there for PRAYING SILENTLY across from an abortion clinic – TWICE!! – would indicate that a proportional sentence for these nihilist scum would be a minimum of ten years … at hard labor. But … it’s their country, not mine. We have enough problems, here, letting our own nihilist scum run around breaking laws all over the place, impeding commerce, destroying property, and unlawfully imprisoning drivers and pedestrians without facing any consequences, at all.
British prison sentences are dishonestly concocted to appear tougher than they are. It is never the full stated term. Depending on the severity of the crime, perhaps up to two thirds of the sentence is the max. But parole consideration is initiated one third in, and lesser, non violent crimes are littered with lessening factors.
It is often just a third.
I am not familiar with the Brit. appeals courts procedures, but I would rather expect that something like a “British Civil Liberties Union” would fund appeals to delay the carrying out of the sentences and to get them reduced so that the automatic reductions E. Howard Hunt lists above come off smaller sanctions.
I will believe that Leftist terrorists are actually punished in any Western country when I see it.
In passing, for the last couple of days there have been “mostly peaceful” riots in Leeds, England. Apparently a double-decker bus has been burned and a police car destroyed, among other damages. Will anyone be charged for that, since the causes seem to be ethnic?
Subotai Bahadur
I think the judge should disallow the use of any products in jail by these idiots that use petroleum in their manufacture. Only natural wood toothbrushes with pig hair for bristles. No plastic of any kind. Quill and ink for writing on paper. Let’s see how they like a world without fossil fuels.
Notice that they never block a full size 4×4 pickup?
Finally some sanity & consequences for the unlawful restraint they’ve imposed on so many others.
I don’t feel bad for the 22 yr old going to jail. She is an adult and responsible for her own actions. I’m surprised at the people outside holding up signs being arrested as there is no mention of any disruption to the court but England has much different rules. They should have put on a keffiyah and held up Pro Terrorist signs at the same time and the cops wouldn’t have dared touch them.
They will certainly be able to reduce their Carbon Footprints in jail.
Native Brits receive 4-5 years in prison for ‘peaceful protest.’
Ok. Now deport all the violent immigrants burning your country to the ground.
You, too, USA.
Blocking traffic and unlawfully imprisoning people do not comprise “peaceful protest”. Peaceful protest is walking around carrying a sign or trying to hand out leaflets. Imposing oneself on others and restricting the movements of others and commerce, just to force people to pay attention to you, are crimes that no decent society should allow.