The activists agreed to cause disruption to traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the motorway for four successive days in November 2022.
Roger Hallam, 58, co-founder of the group, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other four defendants – Daniel Shaw, 38, Louise Lancaster, 58, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 35, and Cressida Gethin, 22 – were each handed four years’ imprisonment.
Prosecutors alleged the protests, which saw 45 people climb up the gantries, led to an economic cost of at least £765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was more than £1.1m.
They allegedly caused more than 50,000 hours of vehicle delay, affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 “compromised” for more than 120 hours.
A police officer suffered concussion and bruising after being knocked off his motorbike in traffic caused by one of the protests on 9 November 2022, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.
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