Three protesters given prison sentences for blocking Cuadrilla lorry convoy

Three environmental activists are believed to be the first people to receive jail sentences for an anti-fracking protest in the UK.

Simon Roscoe Blevins, 26, and Richard Roberts, 36, were given 16 months in prison and Richard Loizou, 31, got 15 months on Wednesday after being convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Preston crown court in August. Another defendant, Julian Brock, 47, was given a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to the same offence.

The four men were charged after taking part in a four-day direct action protest that blocked a convoy of trucks carrying drilling equipment from entering the Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool.

The site near Preston New Road has been a focal point for protests since the government overturned a decision by Lancashire county council and gave the energy firm Cuadrilla consent to extract shale gas at two wells on the site in October 2016. More than 300 protesters have been arrested since Cuadrilla began constructing a fracking pad at the site in January 2017.

The company has said fracking is likely to start within the next few weeks, confirming on Monday that 28 lorries had brought fracking equipment to the site.

Sentencing the men, the judge, Robert Altham, said he thought the three men posed a risk of reoffending and could not be rehabilitated as “each of them remains motivated by an unswerving confidence that they are right”. He added: “Even at their trial they felt justified by their actions. Given the disruption caused in this case, only immediate custody can achieve sufficient punishment.”

Kirsty Brimelow QC, the head of the international human rights team at Doughty St Chambers, representing Roberts on a pro-bono basis, told the judge it had been a peaceful and political protest. She said the right to freedom of speech went beyond “simply standing and shouting” and extended to non-violent direct action.

Brimelow said the fact that central government had overturned the local council to reject Cuadrilla’s fracking application demonstrated that “political process has been exhausted”. She added that “there has been no environmental protester sentenced to jail since 1932”.

Local businesses and residents were affected, said the judge, who referred to an elderly and disabled woman at a nearby housing estate who was forced to walk 90 minutes on crutches to get home because she could not get the bus.

they would become the first environmental activists to receive jail sentences for staging a protest in the UK since the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in the Peak District in 1932, which marked the beginning of the right-to-roam movement.

willhud9 wrote:I am not remarking on the specific protest. I am just saying that blocking roads is not considered a peaceful protest.

To: UK government
Protect the right to protest: don't unfairly punish people who oppose fracking

The ability of communities to organise, provide critical voices and offer something more than symbolic opposition to the fracking industry is essential.

But there are increasingly severe outcomes and restrictions on protesters involved in protest actions against the fracking industry. These sentences are disproportionate to the acts that they have committed.

We should all be treated equally under the law, no matter what we're protesting about. And the UK government needs to protect the right to protest, starting with commissioning the Joint Committee on Human Rights to conduct a thematic inquiry into the declining space for civil society to effectively oppose the fracking industry in the UK.

Environmental activists who endangered no-one, damaged nothing and harmed nobody have been jailed in the UK for the first time since the 1930s. A worrying development for the freedom to protest. - @AmnestyUK

The disproportionate nature of these sentences for peaceful protest is truly shocking. I have visited the Preston New Road site. Such severe jail sentences for peaceful protest fails to appreciate the strength of feeling of protesters & the local community against fracking. - @johnmcdonnellMP

willhud9 wrote:Blocking traffic is never peaceful. What happens when someone in an ambulance dies on route to the hospital because 3 people decided to block traffic that day? Should all 3 be charged with manslaughter?

willhud9 wrote:I’m not saying in this specific case that the governments response and sentencing is disproportionate. I get that. All I was saying is the idea that blocking a road harms no one is not universal and doing so as a protest is illegal in most areas including the US which has very lax speech laws comparatively.

I'm With Stupid wrote:Any protest that starts to threaten that is quickly quashed (see Occupy Wall Street or the pipeline protests).

I'm With Stupid wrote:

willhud9 wrote:I’m not saying in this specific case that the governments response and sentencing is disproportionate. I get that. All I was saying is the idea that blocking a road harms no one is not universal and doing so as a protest is illegal in most areas including the US which has very lax speech laws comparatively.

I mean it inconveniences people and in theory could cause harm if an ambulance couldn't get through. But let's be honest, you could say the same thing about a train strike. I had 4 hours added to my journey last week because of a train strike. There was a blind woman struggling to get on the replacement bus with her guide dog. And of course what if the increase in traffic resulted in an ambulance getting to the hospital later? But it's still wrong to fail to call this peaceful action, and I was still in favour of the people who chose to strike despite having two journeys made terrible by the strike.

Strikes work because they harm the company financially. Boycotts work for the same reason. But when you have a company that is able to harm the community they are based in and that community have absolutely no recourse to harm the company in retaliation, then direct action becomes the only option that people have. They voted at the ballot box and were ignored. The only legal option is to try and arrange a protest where the police and the company are informed to such a point that they can make sure it has literally zero impact on the running of the company. The US (and UK) loves that kind of free speech. Any free speech that doesn't interfere with the profits of big business. Any protest that starts to threaten that is quickly quashed (see Occupy Wall Street or the pipeline protests).

Local communities shouldn't have things like this imposed on them, they should be persuaded. And there will definitely be a tipping point where the benefits offered (local share of taxation, etc) convince most people that the drawbacks are worth it. Let's be honest, being willing to have a nuclear power station or a fracking company on your doorstep should make a local council rich. But all of the money immediately leaves the local community and other than the handful of local people who get decent jobs, these places typically continue to be deprived.

But the council took the unusual step of promoting private legislation through the UK parliament which gave them harbour authority powers for the whole of their coastline. This enabled them to require the oil companies to share a properly planned terminal in Sullom Voe, which became the largest oil port in Europe. As part of the deal, the companies paid a disturbance payment to the council, based on the throughput of oil. The largest part of this money has been paid into a charitable trust, legally separate from the council, which now has assets in excess of 210 million. The income is able to finance expenditure of approximately 11m a year.

Thommo wrote:

I'm With Stupid wrote:Any protest that starts to threaten that is quickly quashed (see Occupy Wall Street or the pipeline protests).

How quickly was occupy wall street quashed?

Three men jailed for a fracking site protest have been freed after judges ruled their sentences were "excessive".

Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, and Rich Loizou, 31, became the first UK anti-fracking protesters to be sent to prison, after climbing on lorries at Cuadrilla's site in Lancashire.

Court of Appeal judges ruled they should be released from jail and instead imposed conditional discharges.

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said an "immediate custodial sentence in the case of these appellants was manifestly excessive".