Climate protest trial turns to chaos as defendants defy court rules

There was chaos in the courtroom at a climate protest trial when two defendants stood and made statements defying the authority of the court.

At separate points during the trial on Thursday, Roger Hallam and Daniel Shaw, charged along with three others with conspiring to block traffic on the M25 in 2022, stood up in front of the jury and spoke out of turn.

Hallam, whose evidence was discontinued on Wednesday, stood up just as court got under way on Thursday and said: “I wish to communicate to the jury and the court that I was forcibly removed from the court yesterday for refusing to break my oath and speak the whole truth.”

Later on, while Louise Lancaster, a co-defendant, was in the witness box, Shaw, whose evidence was also discontinued on Wednesday, stood up from his place in the court and directly challenged the judge.

He said: “Climate change represents an existential threat to humanity. The court agrees with that. Why are you not trying the people causing this crisis?”

Each time the defendants continued speaking as the judge, Christopher Hehir, ordered the jury to leave the court.

Lancaster refused to submit to cross-examination by the prosecution, as Shaw and Hallam had done the previous day, prompting Hehir to discontinue her evidence.

Hehir told jurors: “Members of the jury, in your absence I had a discussion in open court with Miss Lancaster. In frank and straightforward terms she has told me she is not prepared to submit to cross-examination. In those circumstances her evidence is at an end.”

By the time Cressida Gethin, another co-defendant, was called to give her evidence, she and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, who had earlier declined to give evidence in her own defence, were the only defendants left in court.

Answering questions from the judge, Gethin described herself as a supporter of Just Stop Oil. “I have taken part in some of their demonstrations, some of their protests,” she said.

Asked if there was an agreement to cause disruption on the M25 in November 2022, Gethin said: “Clearly there would have been some planning – you have to make it safe. It would have been quite ridiculous just to randomly go out and do something like that. I suppose it’s up to the jury to decide if it constitutes an agreement.”

She added, speaking to jurors: “I’m going to move on to your rights as a jury. In the Old Bailey there is a plaque that says jurors have an absolute right to acquit according to their convictions. This was recently upheld in the high court. Just in the last couple of months the high court ruled this is a right enshrined in the British constitution.”

The trial continues.