Seven Just Stop Oil supporters have been found not guilty at Southwark Crown Court. It comes three years after they took part in a slow march in London to demand an end to new oil and gas licensing.
The seven are Samuel Griffiths, Anthony Harvey, Jamie Russell, Jessica Sole, Rosemary Venn, Dr Thomas Barber and Gorden Garrick. On 1 November 2023, they were among 64 supporters who joined a slow march on Cromwell Road in London.
They were arrested and charged under Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023, interference with key national infrastructure. This offence carries a maximum penalty of 12 months imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. Following the arrests, 14 people were held for court and of these, three were then remanded to prison.
The seven, who represented themselves in court, appeared before Judge Rudolf at Southwark Crown Court last week. The jury delivered its majority not guilty verdict on 22 September after around 3.5 hours of deliberation.
This was the fifth Just Stop Oil Crown Court trial for the Section 7 offence since May 2024. And it’s the fourth acquittal in a row of Just Stop Oil supporters who participated in slow marches.
The judge thanked the defendants for how they conducted themselves. He ordered the prosecution to pay costs and asked them to review all the Cromwell Road slow march cases and consider whether or not to continue.
Griffiths, 51, a graphic designer and dad from Walthamstow, was remanded to prison for 21 days following his 16 minute march. Speaking after the verdict, he said:
I’m proud of being part of the action, trying to stand in the way of the harm that is coming for my son. I’m proud of being part of this trial group and the account we gave for ourselves. I really welcome this acquittal.
Every case since the first has resulted in not guilty verdicts. Surely this shows that the remaining cases are not in the public interest and should be dropped.
Jamie Russell, 52, a children’s author from Shrewsbury, said:
On 1 November 2023, I was arrested for slow marching on Cromwell Road for twenty minutes to highlight the government’s decision to issue new North Sea oil and gas. If burned, those reserves would create 1.5 billion tonnes of emissions – causing 1.5 million premature future deaths.
For twenty minutes marching I faced potentially a year in prison, so I’m grateful to the jury for finding us not guilty.
In our evidence we included a report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries – co-authored by a senior member of the Government Actuaries Department – which states that if we hit 2C by 2050 we will see two billion deaths.
The Crown Prosecution Service and the judge allowed this to go into ‘Agreed Facts’ – meaning it was not in dispute. When faced with mass death on this scale, what else can ordinary people do but enter into civil resistance?
Defendants not allowed ‘reasonable excuse’
As in previous Just Stop Oil trials for the Section 7 offence, the defendants were not allowed to use any legal defences such as reasonable excuse and necessity. However, the prosecution agreed to the inclusion of some key climate facts in evidence. And defendants were allowed to talk about the climate crisis in relation to their motivations for taking action.
In giving evidence, Griffiths described how the prosecution had framed the action as an “extended protest” and said:
I was in the road for 16 minutes, how can this, in all seriousness, be described as extended. If that’s the case, what does a reasonable length of time look like? Five minutes, two? Is that how little weight we give to free expression?
Griffiths went on to explain his motivations for taking action, saying:
On 20 July 2022, in response to the 40C temperatures of the previous day, I saw on the news a young person wearing orange climbing a gantry on the M25 in support of Just Stop Oil’s demand to end all new oil and gas development.
I was inspired by their courage and their commitment to be unignorable. I also deeply appreciated someone taking this seriously and acting like this was an emergency, doing more than just holding the right opinions, or simply ignoring the situation, or like the government at the time, actively making things worse.
I never had the courage myself to climb a motorway gantry, but I did think the very least I could do was to commit to supporting Just Stop Oil and its aims by taking action.
In her closing speech to the jury, Venn, 37, a researcher in food and agriculture at Coventry University, said:
Unlike the masked men who marched in Dover and Portsmouth the other week (where no arrests were made), we are accountable, open, people who are exercising our right to legally protest, in order to raise awareness of the illegal actions of our government. Actions that are systematically failing to protect its citizens.
We are continuing to chart a path towards a 2.7C rise this century, which will have catastrophic impacts on society as we know it.
In his closing speech to the jury, Garrick said:
I joined the Just Stop Oil protest on 1 November 2023 because our government was going backwards. It planned to go against pledges and extract more oil from the North Sea and was withholding the truth about climate change.
I did it to sound the alarm. I did it in the public interest. To bring the truth to public attention.
In all good conscience I chose to do what I wholeheartedly believed would protect my children. And your children, and their children. And I believe that had my late wife lived she would have been with me.
I did it because I believed it to be a just cause. I did it because I believed that it is a moral imperative to protect life. And what I did, all that I did, was to walk slowly and peacefully in the road for not very long.
Also addressing the jury, Harvey said:
Civil resistance to a morally compromised political class is not only necessary as an act of self defence, but I say it is also morally justified.
There are many who know the horror of our situation who nonetheless are carrying on with business as usual, in the mistaken belief that someone else will solve the problem.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if you don’t stand up and do something, we are going to lose literally everything.
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said over a century ago, ‘Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people try to change it. All progress is therefore dependent upon the existence of unreasonable people. And if that’s what they call you, celebrate it’.
Just Stop Oil targeted by Braverman
Then home secretary, Suella Braverman, introduced the 2023 Public Order Act, specifically to target climate protest. She named groups such as Just Stop Oil, and tactics such as slow marching, as specific reasons for its introduction.
Parts of the legislation were enacted through regulations later found to have been unlawfully introduced after a successful legal challenge by Liberty.
Hundreds of Just Stop Oil supporters have been charged with the Section 7 offence and are awaiting trial. Trials have been scheduled out to February 2028.
The first person to be convicted of the offence was Stephen Gingell. He was jailed for six months after pleading guilty in December 2023, having spent about 30 minutes marching on Holloway Road.
Featured image via Just Stop Oil
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