Appeal Court confirms lengthy sentences for climate activists.

Defend our Juries have issued this press release following the decision of the Court of Appeal which was announced yesterday.

Court of Appeal upholds judicial corruption with 10 of 16 Just Stop Oil prison sentences unchanged.
6 years shaved off Whole Truth Five sentences, to prevent “undesirable sentencing inflation”, meaning all are now eligible for immediate release on parole.
Principle of lengthy prison sentences for peaceful protest nevertheless affirmed, with cumulative total sentences of ‘Lord’ Walney 16 only reduced from 41 years to 35 years.
As the results of the appeal were announced, over 30 members of the public gallery calmly and silently rose, turned their backs on the panel of judges and removed outer garments to reveal t-shirts with the message “Corruption In Court” emblazoned on their backs.
The 30+ protesters, who willingly risked possible imprisonment for contempt, were not arrested and left the courtroom following delivery of the judgement.
Even following his recent removal from office, the spotlight remains firmly upon the role of the disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney, paid lobbyist for the oil and arms industries, in bringing about these excessive sentences, on behalf of his clients.
Last month, over 1,000 people occupied the Strand with the Free Political Prisoners exhibition, outside the Royal Court of Justice, in protest against this blatant corruption of our legal system.

Court of Appeal upholds 35 years prison for 16 Just Stop Oil members

On Friday 7 March 2025, following a two-day hearing on 29-30 January, the Court of Appeal reduced the cumulative sentences of the Whole Truth Five from 21 years to 15 years, to avoid the 3 years previously imposed upon Morgan Trowland “being treated as a benchmark, which would result in undesirable sentencing inflation”.

The only other change was a 2 month reduction to the sentence of Gaie Delap, the 78-year-old grandmother who was erroneously held in custody for 43 days over Christmas because SERCO failed to provide a curfew tag that could fit a woman’s wrist [1].

10 of the 16 custodial sentences, imposed on Just Stop Oil supporters between July and September 2024 were upheld in their entirety.

The cumulative total to be served by the 16 has now been reduced from 41 years to 35 years (full breakdown in notes below). This is for taking entirely nonviolent actions to demand the Government stop issuing new oil and gas licenses, a demand which has now been met. It comes in the wider context of a prison overcrowding crisis, with thousands of inmates being released early, to avoid catastrophic prison conditions [2].

In the summary of the judgement read out in open court, Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr confirmed that Articles 10 and 11 of the European Court of Human Rights are engaged in protest cases but also ruled that the trial judges were correct in disregarding both the UK’s international obligations under the Aarhus Convention and the opinion of the United Nations, as expressed by Special Rapporteur Michel Forst.

No specific reference was made in the summary to whether property damage, specifically that caused by throwing soup at the glass screen protecting an oil painting, should be treated as an act of violence equivalent to throwing the same soup in the face of a person. It may be inferred however, from the the lack of any reduction to the sentences received in the Sunflowers case, that the Court of Appeal judges do not believe the trial judges erred in this matter.

Similarly, no specific mention was made of whether having a conscientious motivation to protect the public should be treated as an aggravating or a mitigating factor to sentencing, but the lack of sentence reductions in the majority of the cases is instructive.

‘Corruption in Court’

As the judgement was announced, over 30 members of the public gallery calmly and silently stood up, turned their backs to the judges and removed their outer garments to reveal t-shirts with the message “Corruption In Court” emblazoned upon their backs (artist’s impression above) . This was in protest against the public scandal of undue corporate influence by arms and oil companies upon our legal system as a whole and the recent spate of excessively hefty prison sentences for peaceful protest in particular.

The 30+ protesters, who willingly risked possible imprisonment for their action, were not arrested and remained in the courtroom until the summary of the judgement had been delivered in full, before leaving in a dignified manner and of their own volition, with the judges giving no indication that they were aware of them.

The appeal decision was handed down by a panel of High Court judges, led by Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr. In a move which set a similarly unexpected precedent, with chilling consequences for democracy, Lady Carr ruled in 2023 that the sentences of three years and two years and seven months respectively, against Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, were “not excessive” and reflected “Parliament’s will” [3]. Today’s ruling extends still further the level of punishment deemed reasonable for breaching the prohibition on peaceful civil disobedience.

Carr has recently been in the news defending the independence of the judiciary against interference by PM Keir Starmer and Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch. Hopes that she might also seek to uphold judicial integrity against undue interference by oil and arms company lobbyists, such as the disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney, have been dashed by today’s ruling.

All 16 were jailed in the months after the disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney, the paid oil and arms industry lobbyist, called for groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action, who oppose his clients’ interests, to be silenced and jailed [4].

Prior to Lord Walney’s report in May 2024, jail sentences for peaceful protest in Britain remained extremely unusual (see ‘Timeline of Sentencing Inflation’ [5]).

The UN has previously described the sentences as ‘not acceptable in a democracy’ [6].

Deterrent effect?

While Lady Justice Carr quoted the deterrent effect of high custodial sentences in her reasons given for upholding these, it was only on 30th January 2025, during the appeal hearing itself, that over 1,000 people from the climate, Palestine, and animal rights movements united under the banner of Free Political Prisoners and sat down on the Strand, outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Sitters risking arrest that day included broadcaster and conservationist Chris Packham, TV chef and environmental campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and comedian Tom Walker aka Jonathan Pie [7].

The Free Political Prisoners campaign has called for a meeting with Richard Hermer KC, the Government’s Attorney General, to discuss interference in the justice process by oil and arms industry lobbyists and the silencing and jailing of people for shining a light on corporate crimes.

The appeal was supported by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, who were granted permission to intervene in the case, due to the profound threat such sentences pose to our democracy [8].

The disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney

The ‘Lord’ Walney 16 take their name from that of the disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney (real name, ‘John Woodcock’) who had agitated for their lengthy prison sentences. Walney was still in position as ‘independent’ advisor to the Government at the time of the hearing. He was sacked just days later, due to his clear conflict of interest, as a paid lobbyist for arms and oil companies. An investigation into this corruption and the part he played in lobbying for lengthy prison sentences for peaceful protesters on behalf of his clients has yet to be undertaken, however [9].

Walney resigned from the Labour Party in 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct which are also still to be investigated.

In 2020, Boris Johnson appointed him to the House of Lords, and gave him the role of ‘Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption’. Instead of serving in the post for six months as was initially planned, Woodcock delayed the publication of his report until May 2024.

He used that role to obtain the following paid positions:

Paid chair of the Purpose Defence Coalition, members of which include Leonardo, one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, with “extensive links” to Israel’s military.
Paid adviser to lobbyist Rud Pederson, clients of which include the oil and gas giant, Glencore.
Paid adviser to the Purpose Business Coalition, members of which include fossil fuel giant BP.

The terms of his engagement required him to disclose any conflicts of interest directly to the Home Office, but it is believed he failed to do so.

In May 2024 he published a report, falsely presented to the public and Parliament as ‘independent’, which called for groups such as Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil to be treated as organised criminals. He also suggested that jury acquittals in the trials of such cases were a problem that needed to be addressed [10].

That successive Governments have presented Walney to the public as ‘independent’, encouraging judges to act on his recommendations, while he lobbied for the interests of his clients for pay, is a public scandal requiring official investigation.

Phoebe Plummer, one of the appellants, said (in a statement read out by Amy Pritchard outside the court):

“Our democracy is being sold off to the highest bidder, our courts have been corrupted by the oil and arms industries, and are continuing to jail good people for telling the truth, for resisting genocide in Palestine and the continued extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal. This is justice bent to serve power instead of ordinary people.”

Peter Tatchell, renowned human rights campaigner and staunch supporter of the ‘Lord’ Walney 16, comments:

“It’s criminal injustice! Peaceful climate protesters are getting much longer sentences than the Suffragettes got for violent protests and that many people today receive for serious racist, homophobic and sexist assaults.”

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1519157855823868

Lex Korte, Free Political Prisoners spokesperson, comments:

“This judgement is wildly out of touch with the public who do not want protesters to be locked up for years. In this country, we owe so much to protest movements like the Suffragettes whose actions included arson and bombing – yet the longest-ever prison sentence handed down to a suffragette was three months. When has the UK become a country where people who try to prevent harm and violence fill our prisons? Perhaps the answer lies with industry lobbyists such as ‘Lord’ Walney who push for ever harsher sentences to protect the profits of the companies that pay them. This is not what an independent judiciary looks like.”

The rulings

The full breakdown of the Court of Appeal’s ruling for each of the individuals from the four cases involved in the mass appeal is as follows:

The Whole Truth Five

Received record-breaking prison sentences for planning nonviolent disruption on the M25, to stop the granting of new oil and gas licences.

Roger Hallam – 5yrs reduced to 4yrs

Cressida Gethin – 4yrs reduced to 30 months

Louise Lancaster – 4yrs reduced to 3yrs

Daniel Shaw – 4yrs reduced to 3yrs

Lucia Whittaker De Abreu – 4yrs reduced to 30 months

M25 Gantries

Participated in that same action, by climbing onto gantries over the M25.

George Simonson – 2yrs unchanged