Climate Rights International 348d ago

Before the sun had risen over London on October 17, 2022, Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker were climbing the cables of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge. Supporters of the climate change advocacy group Just Stop Oil, Trowland and Decker scaled the bridge to protest and raise awareness about the failure of the United Kingdom’s government to stop licensing all new oil, gas, and coal projects. For 36 hours, they stayed atop the bridge, leading police to stop traffic across the bridge for the duration and causing major disruption in that part of the city. On October 18, they were arrested and later charged with causing a public nuisance. In April 2023, Decker was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison. Trowland received a three-year sentence, reportedly the longest ever for a peaceful climate protest in the United Kingdom at the time and the equivalent of a month in prison for every hour he was on the bridge. Sadly, those record-breaking sentences have already been broken themselves. On July 11, 2024, Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin were found guilty of conspiring to cause a public nuisance for blocking the M25 motorway in London. They were convicted under section 78 of the contentious Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022. On July 18, 2024, Judge Christopher Hehir imposed shockingly harsh sentences on all five defendants. He sentenced Shaw, Lancaster, Whittaker De Abreu, and Gethin to four-years in jail. Hallam, perhaps the highest profile climate activist in the U.K., was sentenced to an unprecedented five years in jail, in spite of the fact the he offered evidence that he only attended one Zoom meeting to discuss the protest. The judge noted that he considered Trowland and Decker’s sentences as a reference point. (Read more of our report at CRI.org)