By Sam Tobin
LONDON (Reuters) – More than a dozen British climate activists challenged their sentences on Wednesday, arguing their jail terms of up to five years failed to reflect their conscientious motivation for direct action protests.
The appeals of 16 Just Stop Oil activists, who were jailed for between 15 months and five years, follows a crackdown on protest movements in Britain under the previous Conservative government and across Europe.
Activists from Just Stop Oil, in particular, have staged a number of high profile protests in recent years, including painting over the grave of British naturalist Charles Darwin at London’s Westminster Abbey earlier this month.
Four of the 16 challenging their sentences were jailed for four years for a conspiracy to block London’s M25 motorway, one of Britain’s busiest roads.
Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam received a five-year sentence for the same conspiracy, the longest ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain.
Two others appealing were jailed last year for throwing soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting in 2022 – just hours before three other Just Stop Oil members did the same thing.
Danny Friedman, a lawyer representing some of the 16, argued the judges passing sentence wrongly failed to reduce their sentences to take account of the fact the activists’ crimes were for civil disobedience based on their conscience.
“If these sentences on appeal are allowed to stand … they would constitute a paradigm shift in this area of criminal law,” Friedman added.
But Jocelyn Ledward, a lawyer representing British prosecutors, said lesser sentences could be imposed only where defendants have acted proportionately in their impact on others.
Where activists make clear they will engage in “ever-more disruptive campaigns” or have stated they will continue to break the law, courts are justified in concluding that deterrence is required, Ledward argued in court filings.
The appeal concludes on Thursday, with a ruling expected at a later date.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin, Editing by Paul Sandle)
