I am one of the ‘Southwark 6’, four of whom were sent to prison on 5th December 2025 for taking part in Just Stop Oil’s M25 gantry actions in November 2022. I am lucky to be the first of the group to be released on a curfew tag, as a result of having spent some time on remand and on a tag in 2022. Jane, Heidi and Andrew sadly remain in prison.
At our trial, it was fairly clear from the outset that Judge Perrins wanted a guilty verdict from the jury. He dismissed all our defences and completely ignored the defence arguments from our barrister Raj Chada (of Hodge, Jones & Allen) who we had employed to assist us for a morning.
Prior to our trial, a group of three Just Stop Oil gantry climbers had been found not guilty at Guildford Crown Court, which had given us hope that we might get the same result, or at least all get suspended sentences. Why was there such a different outcome for what was essentially the same action?
At Guildford, the Judge allowed the defendants the defence of ‘reasonable excuse’ and the prosecution allowed twelve ‘agreed facts’ about the climate crisis to be included in the evidence put before the jury. This meant the defendants were given the opportunity to explain their actions and their motivations in the light of the agreed facts. By contrast, in our trial we were denied the defence of reasonable excuse and the prosecution would not agree to any climate facts. We were left with very little opportunity to explain the harm we were taking action to prevent and the jury was instructed to ignore our motivations and focus only on whether or not we had caused disruption on the day.
Not surprisingly, Raj Chada suggested that the four of us who were given custodial sentences (in my case 26 months) had a good case for appealing our sentences. We are currently waiting for news of its progress and I am grateful that I have been allowed by Somerset Council to continue to represent Frome West (Green Party) until the result of the appeal is known.
Since 2022 when we climbed the gantries, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have continued to rise and it seems that keeping global temperature within 1.5 degrees of warming from pre-industrial levels is now just a fantasy. This means more frequent and more damaging climate impacts will occur, including flooding, storms, drought, heat waves and crop failure – all the harms that Just Stop Oil was warning about. We may have helped persuade this government to abandon more exploration in the North Sea, but I’m not feeling confident that they will keep to this considering the pressure from right wing politicians to “Drill Baby Drill!” And who knows what any future government will do?
I decided to take the action on the M25 because I could see that government policy on oil and gas expansion was going to affect my children and grandchildren and I was not prepared to stand aside and do nothing. We can all do something in our personal lives to reduce our own CO2 emissions but it’s our government that has to lead in this emergency. As things are, I am very worried that we will reach a tipping point which will allow global temperatures to rise to catastrophic levels. Sadly the fossil fuel companies’ lies have prevented what could have been earlier action and as a result we are now dangerously near the edge.
I have made the news locally in Frome and it has done no harm to remind people of the existence of the climate crisis which has recently taken a backseat to the cost of living crisis and the devastating and unjust wars being waged against the people of Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran.
The only good thing about expensive fossil fuels is that more people will be seriously thinking about retrofitting their houses and getting around to buying an electric car. And, who knows, they might even think about voting Green.