Press Release from Just Stop Oil:
On Thursday, Cressie Gethin, 22, a musician from Hereford was one of five Just Stop Oil supporters convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance for planning to disrupt the M25 by climbing motorway gantries in November 2022.
Just Stop Oil was demanding an end to new oil and gas licensing, a demand that has just been met by the incoming Labour government. [1][2]
There have been chaotic scenes at Southwark Crown Court in London over the two-and-a-half-week trial of the five defendants, both inside and outside the court.
The five defendants – Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam (57, from Wales), Daniel Shaw (38, from Northampton), Lucia Whittaker De Abreu (34, from Derby), Louise Lancaster (58, from Cambridge) and Cressida Gethin (22, from Hereford) – have been remanded in custody until their sentencing hearing on Thursday.
Chris Packham, TV presenter and naturalist, is calling for people to join him at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday in support of the defendants, describing the trial as “the sham of a court case.” [14]
The five were first arrested in 2022 after attending a Zoom call meeting in which a Sun journalist, Scarlett Howes, was present. The Sun alleged it had ‘infiltrated’ the meeting, tipping off the police and enabling National Highways to secure a public injunction.
On Thursday, the jury entered guilty verdicts against all defendants after Judge Christopher Hehir removed all legal defences by ruling that the climate crisis was ‘irrelevant’ to the trial. He has indicated that they now face lengthy prison sentences. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst, issued an extraordinary public statement expressing his serious concerns about the treatment of environmental defenders in the UK and questioned the legality of the proceedings. [3] Mr Forst attended court for two days of the trial.
During the trial, the judge ordered the defendants to finish their evidence without explaining the reasons for their actions. Four of the five defendants (Mr Hallam, Ms Lancaster, Ms Gethin and Mr Shaw) refused to obey the judge, remaining in the witness box so that they could try to explain their motives. On each occasion, the judge ordered them to be arrested for contempt and taken down to the cells.
Judge Hehir also ordered the arrests and imprisonment of 11 people outside the court. They were sitting quietly holding signs saying: “Juries deserve to hear the whole truth” and “Juries have the absolute right to acquit a defendant on their conscience.”
The judge allowed the five defendants to make closing speeches to the jury.
Mr Hallam said:
“I took an oath before God to tell you the truth; and we have received no good reason why we have not been allowed to tell you what is blindingly obvious and what I’m not allowed to tell you about; if you have not been able to hear what is blindingly obvious, it’s not a fair trial … If thousands of people were going to die further up the motorway, we would have a reasonable excuse”
Ms Gethin said:
“People are dying already. My generation is being cast into the dust … We are told this is a functioning democracy, but that direct actions like this are not justified … it is in that democracy that no one has been held responsible for the billions of pounds wasted on PPE, for the lives lost in Grenfell tower, for the Post Office scandal. Is it justice when the powerful are not held to account, and citizens are prosecuted for calling them out? This is why we have a jury system. Juries have common sense and, other than us, you are the only ones that are not paid to be here.”
Mr Shaw said:
“A few years ago, when I was working for social services, before I was ever arrested, before I was ever in prison, there was a key test for me: what will people think in 20 or 30 years when we look back on this – was what we did, what happened on the M25, trying to stop the government from destroying society, was it really a public nuisance?”
Ms Lancaster said:
“I wrote this in a cell with a blue pencil, forgive me. We are being systematically silenced … Public nuisance? I acted in the public good. How can direct action to prevent cataclysmic harm to the general public not be in the public good. It’s not unlawful for a group committed to bring about change to protect life.”
Ms Whittaker De Abreu said:
“… now that the UN representative has returned to Geneva, the judge has gone back to where he started, saying that the existential threat to all our lives is irrelevant and that we can’t even talk about it at all! I’m sorry if I’m missing something … But I don’t understand how this is happening. It doesn’t make any sense. I feel like we’re being gaslit. I feel like I’m going mad. I feel like I’m in a horror movie. I want to wake up from this.”
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
“Our Prime Minister has said that our prisons are overcrowded and that we need to release prisoners. So why are five brave campaigners facing several years in prison for participating in a Zoom call to discuss a proposed peaceful environmental protest? They have not been allowed to defend themselves in court. They are fighting against the dirty oil industry. Meanwhile, those in the big oil companies like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil still roam free, even though they know that they are causing climate breakdown. It couldn’t be clearer that this is not in the public interest.”
On Tuesday, 9th July, more than 80 people returned to Southwark Crown Court, in solidarity with the eleven previously arrested, and holding similar signs outside. This time the judge left them alone. A spokesperson for the ‘Defend Our Juries’ campaign said of Judge Hehir’s decisions to arrest one group of people and not the other: [6]
“It’s hard to make sense of that unless Judge Hehir now realises he got it wrong. In which case he should apologise to those he arrested and make proper reparation.”
Until leaders act to protect us, Just Stop Oil supporters will continue to take the proportional action necessary to generate political pressure. This summer, airports will be declared sites of civil resistance. Sign up to take action at juststopoil.org.
