The news that five members of the protest group Just Stop Oil have been sentenced to up to five years imprisonment has gone down like a lead balloon with certain other climate activists – our friend Chris Packham being one of them.
On 18 July Roger Hallam – the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain, among other groups – was sentenced to five years imprisonment, charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. Four others – Daniel Shaw, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, Louise Lancaster and Cressida Gethin – were similarly sentenced to four years imprisonment.
These five protestors had recruited other activists and encouraged them to join in a protest which involved causing a road block on the M25 by climbing gantries. The protest eventually involved 45 people, and took place in November 2022.
The total extent of the delays caused by the 3 day protest was calculated to be 50,856 hours. 708,523 vehicles were affected. The economic cost was calculated to be £769,966, added to which police forces across six counties spent almost £1,150,000 on policing the stunt.
And the human cost?
The court heard that a child with special needs had been unable to take medication which prevented them becoming highly volatile. A victim of aggressive cancer missed a hospital appointment and was forced to wait two months for treatment. Hospitals missed food deliveries. People missed flights and funerals. School students were delayed en-route to vital mock exams, and a policeman dealing with disruption was knocked off his motorbike and concussed.
For the above, the eco-campaigners were handed record sentences, totalling 21 years. The Judge, Christopher Hehir, stated in his summing up that the five had “appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound by neither the principles of democracy or the rule of law”.
Roger Hallam was sentenced to 5 years inprisonment
But their colleagues and friends – including the BBC’s Chris Packham – didn’t see it that way.
Writing in the Guardian with energy tycoon Dale Vince, Packham described the five as “truth tellers” and “courageous”. In a piece which attached Judge Christopher Hehir, they accused him of having “obvious contempt for international law” and accused him of ignoring the scientific community during the court case. “What’s happening is shameful and unlawful”, they wrote.
Perhaps Packham and Vince know the law better than Hehir; but we have to admit we would find that surprising, given that Hehir was called to the bar in 1990, and has almost 35 years of practising law under his belt.
No, the fact is that Packham doesn’t like the sentence, believing that people the five accused were ‘truth tellers’, that therefore means they should be automatically exempt from punishment. What’s interesting here is that while Packham is happy to criticise everyone involved in the case (and he admits that he is friends with one of those who was jailed on Friday), he is not willing to go down with them.
Yes of course, he will make all the right noises. He will write in the papers and on Twitter about the fact that life is unfair, and because the protestors were fighting the oil industry, any action is ok. He will join mass protests; but if would Packham ever put himself in a position where he might be jailed for his beliefs?
He has talked about this before, in interviews and in his Channel 4 programme “Is it time to break the law?”. The programme was billed as “a personal journey” in which Chris decides for himself “if it’s ethically acceptable to break the law to protest against government policies on climate change”.
Interestingly, two answers emerged. In the programme Chris was quick to praise the most hard-line eco-protestors; impressed by the slow marches of Just Stop Oil and their paint-daubing. (More Just Stop Oil protestors are in court this week, facing changes of causing criminal damage by paint-throwing).
But his conclusion, after lots of soul searching, was that it was better for him to keep his nose clean and stay out of jail. “I have to ask myself what is the most effective use of me?”, he said in a Guardian interview. “I would lose my voice immediately if I went to prison. I would also lose part of my mind, if not all of it, because that environment is not suitable for someone like myself… is that the best use of Chris Packham, or is it coming up with other imaginative ways of keeping the message in the public domain?”.
On the flip side, for his programme he met with Roger Hallam, the aforementioned Just Stop Oil co-founder who has just been jailed. Roger’s view is that a revered public figure, like Chris, being “banged up” could be the tipping point the movement needs.
Chris Packham going to jail would certainly make some headlines. But it sounds like while he is keen to encourage his loyal followers to make the ultimate sacrifice and spend time in prison, he won’t do the same. Surely if he really wanted to lead by example he should be the one to put himself in the firing line? Otherwise it risks appearing like he is happy for everyone else to take the hit, while he sits in the New Forest making the most of his tv paycheques.
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