Just Stop Oil co-founder avoids jail over Heathrow drone protest, as does Scientist Rebellion co-founder

Three activists who were warned they might face prison for taking direct action with drones near Heathrow Airport over the climate crisis have all received suspended sentences – but not without the judge in the case ‘grossly violating natural justice’.

Suspended sentences for the ‘Heathrow Drones Three’

Mike Lynch-White, Scientist Rebellion co-founder and climate and Palestine activist, received a 17-month suspended sentence and 262 hours of community service for his involvement in protesting against the impact of aviation on climate change.

His co-defendants, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam, and Dr. Larch Maxey, also each received suspended sentences of two years and 200 and 300 hours community service respectively.

In September 2019, the three activists were charged with “conspiracy to commit a public nuisance” in connection to the Heathrow Pause action.

At the very end of the trial, after the defendants had given evidence and closing speeches, the presiding judge, HHJ Edmunds, rewrote his own prior directions to the jury to ensure Roger Hallam and co-defendant Dr Larch Maxey were found guilty. A third co-defendant, Valerie Brown, had been previously acquitted. Mike Lynch-White had pleaded guilty while in prison.

Mike asserts that:

The scientific community have a duty to be honest with the public. Yet in private, they freely admit that 1.5ºC is dead, and we are out of time to avoid a climate catastrophe. The community say the truth will hinder climate action, but of course the complete opposite is true—only when the public is empowered with the truth will our response truly begin.

‘Most of us don’t actually fly’

The Heathrow Pause action consisted of flying toy drones at head height. While it did not take place at the airport itself, it did fall within the surrounding 5.1 km no-fly restriction zone. Prior to the action, the activists had announced their intentions publicly in order to raise awareness of the planned construction of a new runway.

This also allowed authorities ample time to take any precautionary measures to avoid any threats to life or aircraft. During the trial, a Heathrow Airport representative admitted that they were always going to change their own rules and keep planes in the air, so no disruption was caused.

Co-defendant Dr. Larch Maxey said:

Most of us don’t actually fly, whilst the elite 1% take over 20% of overseas flights. Subsidising aviation and Heathrow’s third runway are plane madness. So it’s the height of hypocrisy for our aviation-fuel-soaked government to be putting me in prison for trying to stop runway madness whilst they crash through their own carbon targets.

Last year, Mike received one of the longest prison sentences in modern UK history for his non-violent protest with Palestine Action at a weapons factory that supplied drone parts to Israel. During the protest, property was damaged and the factory temporarily closed down.

The judge imposed an unusually long prison term as Mike had already been arrested more than 15 times for climate-related actions.

We need to ‘create mass economic destruction’

Roger Hallam commented:

Humankind is heading for indescribable suffering if we continue to put carbon emissions into the atmosphere. When I die, I want to know I haven’t lived a lie. I cannot pretend I don’t know what needs to happen.

Thousands of people need to create mass economic disruption and go to prison in order to force governments to protect their people and enact legislation that will rapidly reduce carbon emissions. Going to prison, losing your job, losing your partner isn’t the end of the world. What is the end of the world, is the end of the world.

Such condemnations are part of an ongoing crackdown on non-violent protests that is having “a significant chilling effect on civil society and the exercise of fundamental freedoms,” according to Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders.

Further, in April 2023, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk had expressed concern that increasingly draconian UK anti-protest laws appear “to target in particular peaceful actions used by those protesting about human rights and environmental issues.”

Heathrow drones trial: a ‘gross violation of natural justice’

Tim Crosland, lawyer and director of the climate justice charity Plan B, which supports climate and land defenders facing prosecution, said:

This is the first time I have witnessed a judge changing the legal goalposts after the defendants have given both their evidence and closing speeches. It is the first time I have ever heard of anything like this taking place.

It is obviously a gross violation of natural justice and the right to a fair trial. It comes amid mounting evidence that, following a pattern of jury acquittals, some judges are manipulating the court process to engineer guilty verdicts for those exposing the government’s climate lies and hypocrisy.

Featured image via Scientist Rebellion