Six Just Stop Oil (JSO) protestors who were handed jail terms for taking part in climate demonstrations – including Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam – have had their sentences reduced.
Last year, 16 activists were sentenced for their involvement in four demonstrations led by JSO between August and November 2022.
Demonstrators ended up climbing on gantries above the M25 and notoriously threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s iconic Sunflowers.
Delivering the judgement this morning, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, alongside Justice Lavender and Justice Griffiths, ruled that six of the 16 should have reduced sentences, while she dismissed the rest of the appeals.
Just Stop Oil campaigners pose outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice
PA
At a hearing in January, the protestors’ lawyers argued that all 16 sentences were “manifestly excessive”.
Hallam had previously been jailed for five years for agreeing to disrupt traffic by allowing protesters to climb onto gantries above the M25 for four days. He received a reduced sentence of four years.
Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin originally received four-year prison sentences for their involvement in the same demonstration.
While Shaw’s and Lancaster’s sentences were reduced to three years, Whittaker De Abreu and Gethin’s sentences were reduced to 30 months.
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The court dismissed the other ten appeals, including those submitted by George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell and Paul Sousek.
The four were imprisoned for between two years and 20 months for their involvement in protests along the M25 and were those responsible for climbing onto gantries over the busy national motorway.
Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett were originally handed jail sentences of between three years and 15 months after they occupied tunnels under the road which led to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex.
Their appeals were dismissed.
The protestors who threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers had their appeals thrown out
PA
After the ruling, Raj Chada, who is the head of criminal defence at Hodge Jones & Allen and represents Hallam and the other protesters, said: “The small reduction in the case of Roger Hallam recognises the extraordinarily excessive sentences that continue to be given out to protesters in England.
“It is, however, extremely disappointing that many of the other sentences were upheld.
“No country in Europe gives such draconian sentences for peaceful protests, proving we are out of kilter with the rest of the civilised world.”
He confirmed that his team are reviewing the judgement and are contemplating an appeal to the Supreme Court.