Last week, at Minshull Street crown court in Manchester, I was sentenced to two and half years in prison for conspiring to intentionally cause a public nuisance. The prosecution’s case was that I intended to “obstruct the public or a section of the public in the exercise or enjoyment of a right that may be exercised or enjoyed by the public at large” – in other words, that I was part of Just Stop Oil’s plan to obstruct planes at Manchester airport. I did intend that – and I have a defence for my actions.
The offence of public nuisance – which falls under the Criminal Law Act 1977 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 – was traditionally and frequently used to prosecute significant environmental offences. It punished big corporations causing real harm to the general public by poisoning water, polluting air, emitting dust and noise or dumping chemical waste. There is no irony lost in the fact that the same offence in statutory form is now being zealously deployed to prosecute environmental protesters.
After spending nine months in prison on remand, my stomach was tied in knots but my head was held high as I climbed the steep, gloomy concrete steps from the court cells into the glass dock, which stands in the centre of the imposing Victorian gothic courtroom in Manchester. At last I was due to find out my sentence. At the end of the long ruling our fate was made clear: Leanorah Ward, Margaret Reid, Daniel Knorr and I were given 18 months, 18 months, 24 months and 30 months respectively. I was taken back to prison, where I remain, with time left to serve.
Make no mistake, this sentence was passed because nonviolent resistance has the potential to spark revolutionary change. The judge, Jason MacAdam, deemed it necessary to hand down “deterrent” sentences in order to inspire fear in others considering similar actions. There was much in the judgment that I disagree with, but I do agree with the judge’s assertion that I considered “the cause to trump inconvenience to others whether that be the general public at Manchester airport or other court users”.
The climate crisis is not our cause; it’s a matter of life or death for everyone. We set out to disrupt the planes at Manchester airport because history shows that resistance can be a catalyst for change, and science shows that we need to change our destructive way of life now to prevent disaster. When we were arrested on the way to airport, we had a banner in our pockets that said “Oil Kills”. When we were sentenced in court we each raised signs saying, “Billions will die”. The science is clear, and the judge is right: I consider the facts to be so alarming, so stark, so utterly heartbreaking that disruption to everyday life is warranted. And I have spent each day in custody, questioning why others equipped with the same knowledge as I have do not feel the duty to act in the same way that I do.
The judge agreed that we acted on our conscience, but for sentencing he wanted to see remorse. But how can it be possible to take part in an act of conscience and then show remorse? How could I be morally compelled to take action one week, and then filled with regret for acting the next? I took action to disrupt the status quo, as I believed that carrying on as normal meant complicity in many unnecessary deaths. I pleaded not guilty and chose to defend my actions in court because I wanted to present the case that I was acting out of necessity to prevent harm. But this defence was ruled out.
The judge stated that “the stance taken by you [by pleading not guilty] distinguishes you all from others who have chosen to follow the long and honourable tradition of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds, that is accepting that you have broken the law and accepting the punishment that follows”. In doing this he not only disregarded the 1670 trial of Penn and Mead (where Quakers pleaded not guilty to unlawful assembly), the Ploughshare Four trial (where peace activists defended themselves by arguing that they acted to prevent harm), and the Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela (who defended himself against conspiracy charges brought by the apartheid South African government). They all pleaded not guilty.
He also denies the very essence of the tradition of protest: its ability to evolve and adapt to different contexts in order to find the confrontational edge essential to nonviolent action. Just Stop Oil is not a re-enactment group, it is an action group, which has taken a strategic decision to continue resistance into the courtroom. By asserting the necessity for our actions, we include the legal system in the debate over our duty and responsibilities.
Later in the judgment, MacAdam appeared to reveal outright contempt for those in resistance, as he mused “how wrong it is in a free and democratic society to consider that your own belief in the worthiness of a cause to be justification for breaking the law”. As if centuries of political and social struggle had never taken place, as if the current “free and democratic society” has delivered the protection and defence we need from ever-increasing heating and extreme weather events.
My time incarcerated will be spent in service. I will continue to follow in the noble tradition of civil resistance, using my time to read about past campaigns and the people behind them. People who also served time in prison, in the belief that despite the reaction of the state, their actions were a necessary public service.
I will consider how to hold those responsible for the greatest crime ever committed against humanity to account.
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Indigo Rumbelow is co-founder of Just Stop Oil. She is serving a sentence in HMP Styal
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