Four campaigners from Insulate Britain, including two from Brighton, have been found guilty by a jury in the first of three trials for causing on a charge of causing a public nuisance.
The four were among 12 people arrested for blocking junction 3 of the M25, the Swanley interchange, in September 2021 just before the COP26 climate conference.
A jury at Hove Crown Court took less than half an hour to reach a unanimous guilty verdict.
Alexander Rodger, 33, of Ditchling Road, Brighton, and Venetia Carter, 58, of Sutherland Road, Brighton, denied causing a public nuisance by obstructing the motorway.
They were tried alongside Catherine Eastburn, 55, of St Gerard’s Close, London, and Cameron Ford, 32, of The Homing, Cambridge, who also denied the charge.
Judge Stephen Mooney said that he did not intend to jail the four but was considering a community sentence involving unpaid work.
He said that he wanted to know their means because they would be expected to foot the bill for the four-day trial. The full cost could run into tens of thousands of pounds.
The trial is the first of three trials resulting from arrests made on the day, with a number of other trials arising from similar protests also due to take place starting from Monday (24 April).
They were initially arrested for obstructing the highway and later arrested for the more serious charge of causing a public nuisance.
Counsel for the prosecution were Alex Young and Kate Temple-Mabe. Raj Chada represented Alex Rodger while Neesha Carter, Cathy Eastburn and Cameron Ford represented themselves.
All four were remanded on bail to be sentenced on Friday 5 June.
I would like to see their community order being to work insulating people’s homes would be an excellently appropriate sentence, that also fits nicely in with their activist agenda!
I would prefer that they received a custodial sentence to send a message that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated.
I don’t normally agree with Benjamin but he’s got a rock solid point.
Would you want them insulating your house? I wouldn’t.
The only way these protests are going stop is when people start getting locked up for a meaningful length of time. They have to understand that there are real consequences to their arrogance.
Charles U Farley
I think the point Ben is trying to make is they should be made to do environmental work. I personally would make them go around the city removing graffiti at their own cost, that way they learn the errors of their ways, hits them in the pocket and saves us tax payers the cost of their prison sentence, and the city might start to look a bit better.
Or unpaid work in a car wash ?
Should have just listened to them before the fuel and cost of living crisis set in.
Instead we got our knickers in a twist over how they protested instead of thinking about why they protested.
When ‘protesters’ try and stop stopping people going to work, children to school, travellers going on holiday, missed hospital appointments and whatever else damage they cause, their argument becomes irrelevant. Utter fools the lot of them, and they should be punished accordingly.
And do really think we would all be driving around in electric cars powered by wind and solar??
One of these so called activists is quoted as saying ““That is what we are doing and that is what we will continue to do and we know in time the judicial system will catch up. In the same way it is now illegal to keep women from the ballot box or to own a slave”.
I assume that she is, therefore unaware that, according to recent figures, more than 130,000 people are trapped in slavery in the UK alone – and it is estimated to cost the UK £33 billion per year and 49.6 million people live in modern slavery – in forced labour and forced marriage throughout the world..
Perhaps they’d prefer to campaign against this instead of obstructing ordinary people going abut their legitimate business…