At least one protester has been jailed for five weeks while three others were given fines and community service for taking part in a protest to demand government action on insulation.
According to reports, Daphne Jackson, 72, Beatrice Pooley, 65, and two protesters who have outstanding court cases sat in the road at the Bishopsgate junction in London during an Insulate Britain protest on 25 October 2021. The four were convicted of causing a public nuisance earlier this year and sentenced on Thursday.
Jackson was said to have told the court: “We are not crackpot activists. We are people who can read the science.”
David Matthew, prosecuting, said: “If the court does not maintain the right of the public to use a public road, it would be a failure and rightly resented by the public. This was aimed to cause disruption. It aimed to seek publicity.”
Delivering the sentences, Judge Silas Reid said: “None of you have shown any real remorse for your actions. In fact, you wear them with a degree of pride.
Speaking further, he said “You each feel that the democratic process has failed, and you each acted in a way that set yourselves above the law, as though you were entitled to decide what the whole country does. Getting your message across in the media was more important to you than disrupting thousands of people.
Read also: Anambra govt calls for global partnership, funding to combat gully erosion
While Jackson was given a 12-month community order and will have to complete 60 hours of unpaid work and will also have to pay £3,500 in prosecution costs and a £95 surcharge, Pooley was given an 18-month community order and will have to complete 60 hours of unpaid work. She will have to pay £600 in prosecution costs and a £95 surcharge.
One of the other protesters was jailed for five weeks and will have to pay £3,500 in prosecution costs and a £128 surcharge. The other was given a six-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and will have to complete 80 hours of unpaid work.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
