R v Hallam and others (Appellants) (‘Just Stop Oil’ protests case)

Sixteen defendants sentenced in four cases for offences committed in connection with Just Stop Oil climate protests between August and November 2022, appealed to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) against their custodial sentences. The four cases are: (1) the Thurrock Tunnels Case, where four appellants were sentenced to between 15 and 36 months' imprisonment for conspiring to cause a public nuisance for occupying tunnels under roads providing access to the Navigator oil terminal in Thurrock, Essex, causing road closures; (2) the Sunflowers Case, where two appellants were sentenced to 24 and 20 months' imprisonment for causing criminal damage after throwing soup onto Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting in the National Gallery; (3) the M25 Conspiracy Case, where five appellants were sentenced to between four and 5 years imprisonment for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, after 45 protesters were arrested for climbing or trying to climb onto gantries across the M25 motorway; and (5) the M25 Gantry Climbers Case, where five appellants, who had climbed the gantries across the M25, had pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance and were sentenced to between 20 and 24 months' imprisonment. The appellants (supported by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace as interveners) argued that: the sentencing judge in each case erred because he declined to reduce the sentences imposed on them due to their conscientious motivation; the sentences imposed constituted a disproportionate interference with their rights under Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and/or 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR); and that the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) supplements their grounds of appeal. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal by the five appellants in the M25 Conspiracy Case, reducing their sentencing to between 30 months and 4 years; and reduced the term of imprisonment to one of the appellants in the M25 Gantry Climbers Case. It dismissed the other appeals. In its judgment of 7 March 2025, the Court of Appeal held that: i. “The exercise of sentencing in cases of non-violent protests is to be carried out in accordance with normal sentencing principles, including those contained in the Sentencing Act 2020 s.57, s.63 and s.231(2)”; ii. “The correct approach to issues that may arise when sentencing in cases of nonviolent protests, such as conscientious motivation and deterrence, was considered authoritatively in R v Trowland [2023] EWCA Crim 919; [2024] 1 WLR 1164 (Trowland)” – a case about two protesters who had staged a protest by hanging from a bridge over the M25, where the court acknowledged that that conscientious motivation for the protests may result in greater leniency in sentencing, though on the facts of the case, the defendants’ culpability was still high. iii. Sentencing in cases of non-violent protest “should not be overcomplicated because of the engagement of the [ECHR]”; and if Articles 10 and/or 11 of the ECHR are engaged, “the court then has to carry out what should be a straightforward proportionality exercise, with no need to make extensive reference to domestic or international authorities.” iv. “References to the sentencing outcomes in different cases are unlikely to be helpful, since each case will turn on its own facts. It can also be dangerous.” In Trowland, the Court had found that Article 10 and Article 11 protections were “significantly weakened” on the facts of the case – notably by the fact that disruption was the central aim, as opposed to a side-effect, of the protest, and a “stand-out feature” of the case was the protesters’ lack of moderation. In the premises, the court highlighted the appellants’ stated intention to cause as much disruption as possible, by staging protests which, rather than being persuasive, were “on such a scale as to be coercive”; and that the prospect of being sentenced has not been a significant deterrent. In the Sunflowers Case, the Court found that the protest had not been “violent”, but nonetheless the penalty was not disproportionate given the category of the offence, involving “damage caused to heritage and/or cultural assets”. Accordingly, on a proportionality assessment, the Court found that the sentences were commensurate with the crimes committed (subject to some adjustments it made in the case of the aforementioned appellants). The Court also held that it would not have been appropriate for the sentencing judges to have had regard to the Aarhus Convention or the views of the UN Special Rapporteur, which had criticised the Trowland case, as the Aarhus Convention is not incorporated into English law. The appellants in the Sunflowers Case, the M5 Conspiracy Case and four of those in the M25 Gantry Climbers Case appealed to the UK Supreme Court, arguing that sentences imposed on them (even as reduced by the Court of Appeal) are disproportionate interference with their rights under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). On 8 October 2025, the Supreme Court refused permission to appeal, on the basis that the application does not raise an arguable point of law.