Climate activists face jail for plot to bring M25 to standstill

Five Just Stop Oil activists who rented out an AirBnB as a ‘safe house’ as they plotted to bring the M25 to a standstill are facing jail.

The protesters caused over £500,000 worth of damage and delayed 480,000 rush hour journeys by scaling gantries over the motorway, between 7 and 10 November 2022.

They rented places to stay through AirBnB and just one in southeast London cost them £1,034.93 for four nights.

Extinction Rebellion co-founder, Julian ‘Roger’ Hallam, 58, plotted the chaos with Daniel Shaw, 38, teacher Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker-De-Abreu, 34 and Cressida Gethin, 22.

The plan was for 16 JSO protesters to climb onto the gantries over the M25 every day.

The activists oganised height training and rehearsed and the ‘blue lights policy’ which was to avoid closing off the hard shoulder so the police could get past.

AirBnB’s were booked near to the gantries and were used as ‘safe houses’ where the activists would go two days before their ‘climb.’

Lancaster booked one of these AirBnB’s, a house in southeast London, paying £1,034.93 for the house from 4-7 November.

Five days before the activity took place, Scarlet Howes, a reporter at The Sun, attended a JSO Zoom meeting and recorded it all.

In the call, it was clear that Shaw was running the meeting, before handing onto Hallam, then Whittaker-De-Abreu, then Lancaster and then lastly Gethin.

Only Whittaker-De-Abreu and Gethin were intending to climb the gantries.

The rest were involved in the planning of the demonstration and recruiting 64 protesters to scale the gantries.

During the call, Hallam said: ‘It is almost impossible to stop.

‘We have overwhelming evidence that this in the ballpark of what we need to do.

‘It has the potential to create gridlock.

‘It makes it absolutely impossible for this government to ignore.

‘It has to be done, it has to be done, that is what I have got to say.’

Whittaker-De-Abreu added: ‘We do want to essentially bring the whole motorway to a standstill – that is the vision.’

The protesters contacted National Highways on 6 November 2022 by email both to announce they were taking action the next day and to ask that National Highways impose a 30mph speed limit.

That request was refused and they were urged not to protest.

Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward, KC, earlier said the first day of protesting took place on Monday 7 November 2022.

‘Timings were seemingly deliberately staggered to cause mass disruption.’

Fourteen protestors climbed up different gantries across the M25, between the hours of 7:30am and 11:48am.

On the first day alone, some 240,000 vehicles were affected, with an estimated cost of over £250,000.

Amongst those delayed were children with special needs, people attending funerals and students attending exams.

The protesting continued though over the following days, with 12 climbers arrested on 9 November and a further 8 arrested on 10 November, causing several people to miss flights and cancer appointments.

The total cost to the Metropolitan Police was over £1m.

Ms Ledward added: ‘The activity was coordinated, it was persistent, the equipment recovered was virtually identical.

‘The activity as revealed by findings on arrest, involved a high level of awareness of police methods and efforts.

‘Those who planned to climb, such as two of these defendants, had every expectation that they would inevitably be apprehended by the police.

‘What the conspirators did not know was that the police had received other information of their plan before it reached its final day.

‘Enough to identify those who were part of the conspiracy to mass climb the gantries.’

Ms Ledward told jurors: ‘You may or may not consider the ultimate aim of these defendants to be a noble cause.

‘We all have the right to protest, but we live in a democracy and there are very many ways in which a person can do that, committing a crime is not one of them, nobody, no matter how noble their cause is above the law.’

In total, 47 people were arrested at the Gantries, including Gethin and Whittaker-De-Abreu, while Hallam, Lancaster and Shaw were also apprehended.

Hallam, Shaw, Lancaster, Whittaker-De-Abreu and Gethin all denied but were convicted by the jury of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance.

Hallam, Shaw, Lancaster and Gethin all had their bail revoked during the trial after they defied an order by Judge Christopher Hehir not to talk about climate change when addressing the jury.

Eleven people were arrested for contempt on 2 July for allegedly attempting to influence jurors trying the case.

They were holding placards outside court saying: ‘Juries deserve to hear the whole truth” and “Juries have the absolute right to acquit a defendant on their conscience.’

In her closing speech Whittaker De-Abreu explained to the jury why there had been so much disruption throughout the trial.

‘I can’t use my speech to tell you about my background story. I am sorry about that. I would like to have done that.

‘We had one main intention for the trial. Our intention was not to disrupt the trial or to keep ourselves out of prison. Our main intention was to tell the whole truth.

‘Had we been allowed to explain our actions to you, to set it in context and tell our side of the story there would have been no disruption.’

‘How would climbing gantries make it better? Would it not just put people off the cause? It did work.

‘In early 2023 Keir Starmer agreed to end new oil and gas licenses. The action worked.

‘It was not our primary intention to disrupt anyone. Our primary intention was to protect.

‘Our action was CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) around the heart of the nation.’

Whittaker-De-Abreu added: ‘You are individually and collectively the most powerful people in this courtroom.

‘You are citizens able to apply your conscience and common sense to what is happening in this courtroom and to place events in their context.’

In his summing up to the jury Judge Hehir explained why he had stopped the protesters from talking about climate change in their evidence and closing speeches.

‘My duty is to uphold the law,’ he said.

‘In England and Wales the law is that the sincerely held beliefs of protesters is not a defence.

‘My obligation is to direct you in accordance with the law. The defendants may not like the law. You may not like the law. But that doesn’t stop it being the law.’

The judge said it is possible to protest peacefully in the UK.

‘If you protest in Parliament Square you are not going to be run over by a tank in this country.

‘The truest illustration of the fact that we are a functioning democracy is that the entire government has changed.

‘Most of the MPs in the House of Commons are new. The government didn’t change through a military coup or because a foreign government invaded.

‘The government got kicked out at the ballot box. I am not saying that that is good or bad. It illustrates that we have a functioning democracy.’

Hallam, of Macleod Street, Southwark, Shaw, of Adams Avenue, Northampton, Whittaker-De-Abreu, of Arthur Street, Derby, Lancaster, of Burnt Close, Cambridge and Gethin, of Cambridge all denied but were convicted of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance.

They were all remanded in custody ahead of sentence on 18 July.
ends