Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against ‘unduly harsh’ sentences
Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against ‘unduly harsh’ sentences
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Protesters will gather outside court of appeal in support of activists, who say judges defied decades of precedent. Sixteen environmental activists jailed in the past year will appear at the high court on Wednesday to ask England’s most senior judge to quash their “unduly harsh” sentences.
![[Gaie Delap]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f98e8cbb8202dbcb6498dc9e6c165222d50f1a99/0_595_1983_1189/master/1983.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The appellants, from four separate cases, will appear before a bench of judges led by Lady Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, in a full session of the court of appeal in which they will argue that judges defied decades of precedent to hand them long jail terms for nonviolent protests.
A host of celebrities are expected to join hundreds of protesters outside, while Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are lending their legal expertise in court to support what they describe as a “crucial legal test over the right to protest”. Supporters say the appellants’ sentences, ranging from 20 months to five years for a range of nonviolent civil disobedience protests, are excessive and disproportionate, and the result of a politicised crackdown that is stifling to democratic rights.
The sentences up for appeal include the five-year jail term handed to Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, for taking part in a Zoom call planning road block protests on the M25; three years given to Larch Maxey for occupying a tunnel outside an oil terminal in Essex in 2022; and two years imposed on Phoebe Plummer for throwing tomato soup on the glass-covered Sunflowers painting by Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery.
