My name’s Ella, I’m 22 years old, and I’m writing from HMP Styal, a women’s prison just outside Manchester.
At 4.20am on 5th August 2024, I was arrested on a side street in Gatley, nr Manchester with bolt cutters, glue, a Just Stop Oil hi-vis vest, and a ‘SIGN THE TREATY’ banner. Me and the three others arrested with me, had planned to enter the Manchester Airport airfield (providing it was safe to do so) and block the taxiway by gluing our hands to the tarmac.
My friend and housemate was also arrested, wrongfully, in Birmingham for having bought the phones we had in our possession. We were all refused bail, charged with conspiracy to commit a public nuisance and held in prison awaiting trial. Despite buying phones clearly not being a crime, my friend was repeatedly denied bail and imprisoned for 6 months. He was found not guilty and released with no compensation or apology, he is 19 years old.
I didn’t get near the airport and have been in prison ever since. In February 2025, I was found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, for trying to take action with Just Stop Oil in the summer of 2024, the hottest year ever recorded. I spent 6 months in prison waiting for my trial, and will have served another 3 months by the time of my sentencing at the end of May. The maximum sentence for this offence is 10 years.
I am a fairly average 22 year old, with friends, a supportive family, and hopes and dreams for the future. I had been in my final year studying environmental science at the University of Leeds, and I should have had my whole life ahead of me.
So what drives a young person like me to take nonviolent action as drastic as this?
This is the question I tried to answer during my trial. Explaining to the judge and jury the reason I took action with Just Stop Oil is because the climate crisis poses an immediate threat to millions around the world, to the future of all young people, including my own future. I said that even though this protest may seem drastic, it is proportionate to the scale of the crisis we are facing, because we stand to lose everything.
We were following the legacy of nonviolent civil resistance laid out by those who had achieved social change before us: the fight for civil rights, queer rights, women’s rights, worker’s rights and those who fought for our right to a weekend. We were taking nonviolent action to the centre of the fossil fuel industry, to raise the alarm and send an unignorable message to the government: That they must sign the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and make an immediate plan to transition away from oil, gas and coal to prevent destruction, displacement, and massive loss of life – as science dictates. We wanted to go to an airport – a symbol of the carbon economy – to say that continuing with Business as Usual is what is sending us – humanity – over the cliff edge into runaway global heating, climate breakdown, and societal collapse.
I explained that the science is clear: only a rapid, sustained reduction in the burning and extraction of oil and gas will make a difference to rising global temperatures. Heating the planet by burning fossil fuels is leading to mass crop failure, resulting in food insecurity and starvation for large parts of the world. Price hikes in staples for the rest of us. Crop failure on this scale will lead to mass displacement, where millions of people are forced to become refugees, and lose their homes, livelihoods, and cultures. Millions will lose their lives. One billion people could be on the move by 2050, in only 25 years time. The impacts of this will be felt everywhere, by everyone. I spoke about how I am fearful for my own future, the future of my brother, my friends, my cousins, and all young people everywhere.
I gave evidence about my university lecturers – prominent climate scientists – who spoke about the fear and desperation they felt for their children’s lives, that they weren’t being listened to, that the government was implementing policies contrary to the science. My evidence included informing the jury that we have passed 1.5C of heating, the physical limit beyond which tipping points are triggered, leading to runaway heating. I said that the knowledge I had gained from studying gave me a responsibility to act.
At my trial, as a litigant in person or self-repper (I did not have a lawyer), I put forward a legal defence of ‘self defence’, alongside ‘necessity’. High Court trials are remarkably technical, and if your motivation or the context of your actions is to be considered by the jury you need a ‘legal defence’. That is the Judge has to agree that your actions, motivation and context are allowed to be defended in court. My argument was that I acted not only to protect the lives of the millions living on the frontline of climate breakdown right now, and future generations, but that I acted in self defence on behalf of myself and young people globally. I relied on the clear scientific consensus: that without immediate, sustained reductions in fossil fuel extraction, every young person alive today will experience the disastrous effects of climate breakdown, and the beginning – if not full realisation – of societal collapse, in our lifetimes.
My evidence covered the imminent risk to life that the climate crisis poses. The indescribable harm and devastation that comes from exposing billions to temperatures that can’t sustain human life or farming, the risk of civil unrest, the national security risks and geopolitical tensions that will arise. There are also the tangible threats closer to home, here in the UK thousands are at risk during summer heatwaves – with the elderly, the youngest and most vulnerable losing their lives to extreme heat. Meanwhile thousands are waiting for the next flood or storm to strike and wreck homes or make car-soup or our streets. People are suffering, and it is only getting worse. The climate crisis isn’t something that is coming down the line, to affect your children’s children’s children. The climate crisis is here.
Over the last 6 months in prison, this truth has become clearer and clearer. Climate breakdown is no longer something I’m reading out of a textbook, studying in a lecture, or revising for an exam. It’s on the news, and I’m seeing it through the bars on my cell window. On New Years Day, over a thousand people were evacuated from Greater Manchester, with homes flooded, possessions ruined, and massive disruption caused. There was a severe risk to life, the economic damage was enormous and a state of emergency was declared.
At HMP Styal, a lot of officer’s houses were flooded, and the roads leading to the prison were blocked resulting in a staffing crisis. This compromised the safety of the prison, no-one was allowed to leave their wings or houses. The library and workplaces in the prison flooded, ruining books and leaving some prisoners with no work or activities to attend, even after the regime returned to normal. In 2024/5, extreme weather is part of our new normal: Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham said we’re experiencing once-a-century floods nearly every year, because of climate change.
In January, just before my trial started, apocalyptic scenes of wildfires in LA dominated the news, with firefighters rendered helpless. All they could do was watch, helpless. Thousands of homes, schools and buildings were reduced to ashes. People lost everything. As the fires raged and entire neighborhoods were evacuated, looters ransacked homes. Law and order started to collapse. As the fires died down, reports came in on how the fires were triggered by the recent extreme heat, strong dry winds, and drought conditions. Perfect conditions for an uncontrollable, destructive wildfire, and directly linked to global heating and climate change.
Despite hearing evidence of the clear devastating impacts of climate breakdown that are already happening, the judge in my trial ruled that the climate crisis did not pose an ‘immediate threat to life’ so ruled out mine and my co-defendants legal defences of self-defence, necessity, reasonable excuse and proportionality. He told the jury that anything they’d heard about climate change was not relevant, as it was a philosophical or political belief. The jury were directed to look only at the facts, and could not consider the context surrounding why we acted.
Unfortunately, contrary to what the judge asserted, the climate crisis is not a belief, it is science. And science doesn’t care about beliefs, legal defences, judge’s rulings or prison sentences. The climate crisis will continue to worsen and take more lives, unless governments globally work together to tackle this crisis and stop burning and extracting fossil fuels.
The day before the judge made this ruling, there were devastating floods in Kentucky, USA, and thousands were affected. Over 10 people died, including a 7 year old girl and her mother. They were washed away in their car. In my closing speech, I told the judge and jury about this, about how upset it made me. How many people need to die before we open our eyes? Again, the judge ruled it ‘irrelevant’.
The decision by a judge in Manchester Crown Court – that there is ‘no immediate threat to life’ – will not bring a 7 year old girl from Kentucky and her mother back to life. These rulings will not prevent more lives being lost to rising temperatures and climate disasters. It is becoming overwhelmingly clear that our justice system is not fit for purpose. It has failed to keep pace with the 21st century, the unfolding climate catastrophe, and the reality of our lived experiences.
With no legal defences, the route to verdict left for the jury was simple: did these people make a plan that could have caused disruption? If yes, you must find them guilty. When giving evidence, we were all completely honest about the plan, which involved causing time-limited disruption, to send an unignorable message to the government, to confront Business as Usual to ultimately prevent harm and save lives.
As the jury were barred from considering whether we had a reasonable excuse to act, whether we acted out of necessity to prevent harm or out of self-defence, and also had to ignore everything they had heard about the climate crisis, we were found guilty. However I am grateful to all twelve of them, for listening to what we had to say over three weeks, and making the best decision they could within the constraints given.
In spite of the guilty verdict, of being held in prison and of my impending sentencing, I feel completely at peace. I acted in line with my conscience and moral convictions. I told the truth at trial, both about the climate crisis and about my actions and intentions. I know I acted nonviolently: without violence and actively against violence. I acted to prevent the real Public Nuisance that is climate breakdown.
Being on trial at a Crown Court, in my early 20’s, was the scariest, most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done in my life. It is something most people will never go through. But what choice did I have? At university I studied the truth, and now I have to act as if that truth is real.
