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Today the Court of Appeal is hearing an important test case about sentencing of environmental protesters.
Alex Goodman KC is instructed by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Their intervention addresses the value the common law places on conscientious motivation, the role of articles 10 and 11 ECHR in sentencing, and the Aarhus Convention.
The appeals are the only known examples of punishment of peaceful protesters in which no reduction in sentence was made for the conscientious motivation of the protesters. The intervention concerns five appeals on convictions related to a plan to scale the gantries on the M25. Three of the Appellants did not participate in any protest, but were involved in a Zoom call at which the protest was planned and each received four-year sentences for conspiracy to intentionally cause Public Nuisance contrary to Section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
The Appellants include Roger Hallam who was handed the longest ever sentence for peaceful protest (five years) Just Stop Oil founder Roger Hallam handed longest-ever jail sentence for peaceful protest over M25 chaos | The Standard and Gaie Delap who , aged 78, could not be fitted with a tag JSO protester, 78, to serve extra jail time as tag doesn't fit her.
