Two Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled a bridge over the Dartford Crossing and caused 40 hours of gridlock have been jailed for over two years in a record sentence for the climate group. The Mail has more.
Morgan Trowland, 40, and Marcus Decker, 36, blocked one of the busiest stretches of road in the country during their climate protest on October 17th last year.
The pair hoisted a banner between two pillars of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links the M25 in Essex and Kent, and slept in hammocks in freezing temperatures overnight.
The road beneath was closed by police for fears over their safety, causing traffic chaos – they were eventually arrested after coming down the following day.
Today at Southend Crown Court Trowland and Decker were jailed for three years, and two years and seven months, respectively after being found guilty of causing a public nuisance.
Passing sentence today, judge Shane Collery KC said locking the pair up would hopefully deter anyone else from taking part in similar demonstrations.
“You have to be punished for the chaos you caused and to deter others from copying you,” he said.
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”.
Good to see a proper penalty being meted out for a change.
Worth reading in full.
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Have we all switched off the ‘Emergency’ Alerts notifications?
I am also going to turn my phone off for an hour as a just in case.
I know I am a risk taker, but I am sure I could find out through other means if there is an imminent shark attack in Tynemouth.
Yes its off, but I am a still a bit miffed that Apple put this on my phone as part of an update.
The draw of going back to a dumb phone is more appealing day by day.
Emergency Alerts are off on my ‘phone and will remain so permanently.
Wow, I know lovely Tynemouth very well. Family in Whitley Bay. Small
Better warn family about the sharks then!
Down here its the Tamar trout you have to worry about, the big sweet corn infused ones.
My memory isn’t as good as it used to be but try as I might, I can’t seem to recall a tsunami crashing over the Pennines. I might have missed it, of course.
Likewise a volcanic eruption in Exmouth
I don’t dare – life is so frightening. I don’t know how you maverick types do it – just…going about your daily routines without a thought in your heads about how you might be dead in a hundred years! So irresponsible!
It is not so often we get the opportunity to salute a judge these days but this is one of them.
Unfortunately, the judge has let leniency get the better of him but at least this is a precedent.
The idiot supporters outside court have vowed to continue so hopefully the next bunch of zero brains will face at least a ramping up of the sentencing procedures.
It might appear negative and churlish to mention this but something suggests that this may possibly be a sop to the “net zero deniers,” ie us. These days finding examples of common sense and decency amongst the establishment is a bit like finding rocking horse poo. And given this decision what reaction can we expect from our Davos middle managers?
Anyway, some goods for the weekend.
Next headline – “Freed on appeal – costs awarded against state.”
It would not surprise me in the least.
A racing certainty.
Hahaha.
I almost don’t mind paying the cost of their imprisonment, having to service Mr Big in the south wing every night.
Good luck stopping his oil.
Still not enough
This is a reminder for those who think they know better through unscrutinised acceptance of what someone else said.
I refer to the so-called global consensus of 97% of scientists agreeing with anthropomorphic climate change.It’s 0.3%.
The truth is that we really don’t know. Why engage is such protests? Why adopt crippling counter-measures when there are more pressing, self-evident problems that we are causing on this planet?
Thanks for posting.
The 0.3% figure seems about as unbelievable as 97.1%. Unfortunately.
Even the IPCC admit they see no human signal in the climate data at this time. They have climate models that project future scenario’s but those have no predictive value and so far they have all been way off the mark, predicting way more warming than has actually occurred. It is those worst case scenario’s from climate models that these eco groups take on board as some kind of ultimate truth rather than the real world observations that show nothing of the sort is happening. We cannot allow them to disrupt society in this way based on faith and emotion rather than facts and reason.
I’m pleased to read this. I know he’ll be out in a fraction of that but it sends a message at least. Over here the nutters that glued themselves to The Girl With The Pearl Earring then wore tomato soup for extra mentalist points got 4 months but were out in 2!
The judge said “You believed you know better than everyone else”.— The trouble with these eco fundamentalists, brainwashed by government and media propaganda about a “climate crisis” which is the language of politics not science, is that they put on a pair of blinkers and see only one issue and every other issue has not to be considered because their issue trumps all others. But if your living in a hut in the third world and burning dung to cook because you have never in your life had electricity you might see the world rather differently. You might hope that coal and gas was available to provide that electricity, but instead globalist forces that seek to control the worlds wealth and resources have decided you are not going to have it any time soon. ———It is ok for people who now live in the developed world with a life expectancy previous generations could never have imagined, who sit in their cosy centrally heated house with 50 inch TV pontificating about the very fuels that brought them that prosperity because they have been manipulated into imagining a “climate crisis” exists and it is their job to “save the world”. But we cannot have brainwashed dreamers dictating energy policy when it is clear they only see one thing. ———-Their own confirmation bias.—— 85% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels and that will not be changing anytime soon because there is no alternative except Nuclear, and most eco nut jobs are against that as well. The irony ofcourse is that they do their protesting in a country (UK) that has done more than any other in reducing the CO2 that they get themselves in a tizzy about. We have “The Climate Change Act” (Miliband labour 2008). We have recently waved NET ZERO through with no vote taking place. We are getting rid of petrol, diesel coal and gas. The difference it would make to global climate even if the UK did not exist tomorrow would be undetectable, yet they continue with their pretend to save the planet disruptions and unless this is nipped in the bud with stiffer sentences like the ones above than people are going to be seriously hurt or worse.
I don’t know why everyone here is celebrating as I don’t know yet whether they will end up in an open prison.
I think the police should have left the road open with perhaps a few warning triangles.
Only close it if emergency workers have to go up to help the protesters down.
Any accidents caused should then have been added to the protesters’ charge sheet.
Jailing someone with six previous convictions for two years on the seventh occasion seems overly lenient to me. Sectioning him until has managed to develop enough of an understanding of the real world that one can assume that he’ll refrain from racking seven more convictions would seem more appropriate.
One thing – the headline is wrong. The protesters didn’t shut the M25, the Police did. If they’d just left them there to freeze, the road would have continued running.
Exactly. I remember commenting at the time and stating that if it was left to me these two clowns would have been left where they were. Time itself would have resolved the issue.
Their real crime is that they are pushing a Net Zero agenda the will impoverish billions, take away their freedom and cause mass starvation
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Just a bit of advice to our protesters. Try not to drop the soap in the prison showers and if you do. Then Just oil should do