Just Stop Oil activists who shut down Dartford Crossing bridge in climate protest jailed
The activists say they climbed the bridge to deliver a ‘warning message’
Two Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled a bridge at Dartford Crossing forcing its closure have been jailed.
Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker have been sentenced at Southend Crown Court to three years in prison and two years and seven months in prison respectively for causing a public nuisance.
The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links the M25 in Essex and Kent, was closed from 4am on 17 October last year to 9pm the following day causing widespread disruption as traffic was diverted.
The court heard the activists ascended to a point close to 200ft above the road and unfurled a “giant Just Stop Oil banner” and “rigged up hammocks and stayed there”.
Trowland said in evidence: “We climbed it [the bridge] to deliver a warning message, to put up a banner saying Just Stop Oil and to speak that message through interviews with journalists.”
Judge Shane Collery KC told Trowland and Decker they had been punished “for the chaos” they caused and “to deter others from copying you.”
The judge said that Trowland, who has six previous convictions relating to protests, had a “leading role”, while Decker had one previous conviction relating to a protest.
The judge said that the pair “plainly believed you knew better than everyone else”, adding: “In short, to hell with everyone else.”
“By your actions you caused this very important road to be closed for 40 hours,” the judge said, noting that the disruption affected “many tens of thousands, some very significantly”.
Prosecutor Adam King said small businesses lost “hundreds of thousands of pounds” because of the protest, adding that people also missed loved ones’ funerals in addition to children waiting on the side of the road for buses.
He said the men came down at about 5.30pm on 18 October “with the help of police and a very tall cherry picker crane”, but the bridge was not reopened to traffic until later.
Mr King had told jurors: “We’re not here to litigate the government’s climate change policy.”
Trowland, of Islington, north London, and Decker, 34, of no fixed address, denied causing a public nuisance but were found guilty in a unanimous verdict from the jury following two hours of deliberations.
Energy security secretary Grant Shapps said on Twitter: “I welcome the court’s decision today.
“The right to protest cannot be allowed to outweigh the right of the law-abiding majority to go about their day free from selfish and antisocial disruption.
“We are cracking down on these guerilla tactics which cause misery for the majority.”
Essex Police said that those impacted by the traffic disruption included a “heavily pregnant woman who needed urgent medical help”.
Another person missed the funeral of their best friend of 35 years, the force said, and a business lost more than £160,000 in earnings.
The sentencing comes as Just Stop Oil activists refused to rule out targeting Sunday’s London Marathon, following their disruption of the World Snooker Championships earlier this week.
Some 50,000 demonstrators are expected to gather around Westminster from today until Monday to demand an end to fossil fuels, according to Extinction Rebellion, which is organising the event.
Two members of Just Stop Oil spread bright orange dye across a snooker table at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield bringing the game to a halt before they were arrested.