Showing posts with label injustice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injustice. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 August 2024

Judges jailing Just Stop Oil protesters are reactionary establishment figures

British judges are currently jailing Just Stop Oil protesters. Quite severe punishments. Sometimes utterly unreasonable punishments for peaceful protests. I wrote about that recently when Hallam, an organiser was jailed for five years and a couple of charming young ladies were jailed for four years each for chucking Heinz tomato soup on the frame of van Gogh's 'Wildflowers'. Yes, they were jailed for four years for chucking some Heinz tomato soup on a picture frame in a gallery.


So why are they doing this? It's because they are reactionary. Nearly all British judges come from the middle, middle/upper, upper classes in the UK. They are excellently educated. They go to the best schools and they go to Eton or Harrow after which they go to Oxford or Cambridge.

They become very successful barristers and KCs. They earn lots of money but if they want to become a judge they will have to accept less money but they enjoy the status of becoming a High Court judge or better. They receive a knighthood when they become a High Court judge.

They have high status. But they are part of the establishment. They are firmly part of the British establishment. And I believe a lot of them do not actually believe in climate change. A lot of people in the establishment in Britain don't firmly believe in climate change. They don't want their way of life altered which helps them to not believe in climate change. Their life is too good. They don't want anything upsetting them or their lifestyle. Climate change does negatively impact their lifestyle or will do for future generations.

And so because they want things to remain as they are, they don't like protesters who upset their way of life and tell them that things are going to get worse unless strong action is taken. And if they do have the temerity to upset their way of life in protesting they hammer them as hard as they can and issue overly zealous prison sentences for peaceful protests.

Another judge has done the same thing. He is judge Shane Collery KC (Kings Counsel). He sentenced George Simonson and Theresa Higginson to 2 years in jail apiece. Other protesters he's jailed for 22 months and 20 months. They pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance after they caused mass destruction by climbing gantries on the M25 motorway on November 9, 2022.

The judge said that the protesters were blasé about what they did. He thought the protests were a "curious way of seeking to influence the public opinion."

He added that "[You] considered you knew better than everyone else". Well, I'm gonna say that they do know better than everybody else and they have the courage to scream it from the rooftops. And it is judges like Shane Collery KC who don't understand what's going on. And if we could look back retrospectively in 50 years time at this judgement I think we would all agree that he was terribly wrong. 

That's because in 50 years time time global warming will be impacting the planet far worse than it is now and people at that future time will understand how brave these protesters were in providing the public with a warning for the catastrophe to come.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Sunday, 28 July 2024

Unrelentingly kind, Oxford-educated mum got four years' jail because she rented a safe house to Just Stop Oil

OPINION: Louise Lancaster is described by Theo, her son, as "unrelentingly kind". He added that, "In almost any situation she will put others first." Louise Lancaster is the kind of person who is the backbone of  Britain.

She studied maths at Oxford. She is smart and decent and normal and is the kind of person that Britain should be proud of and protect. But she was jailed for four years because she rented a safe house for Just Stop Oil, the group campaigning against the government's inactivity to deal with climate change properly.

Unrelentingly kind, Oxford-educated mum got four years' jail because she rented a safe house to Just Stop Oil
Louise Lancaster and family in a selfie. Image: Louise Lancaster on the left.

Other protesters were jailed for four years and the organiser, Roger Hallam, was jailed for five years. This was a peaceful protest. It is unheard of to be jailed for five or four years for a peaceful protest. Her ex-husband, Tim, said that she expected to be convicted and jailed and was prepared for it emotionally. And she prepared her family for it as well. Because she was thinking of others again.


Nevertheless the family was shocked at the sentence. Tim said: "To get a sentence that is way longer than you would get for violent crime [the average UK sentence for violent crime is 21.6 months]. It feels terribly unjust."

Destruction of democracy in the UK in silencing climate change campaigners

The sentencing took place under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which was amended to allow for harsher punishments to these sorts of protesters. For people like me, the increased power to judges to hand out more severe punishments for peace protests is almost a fascist act. It's drifting towards a Russia-like situation. It's entirely unacceptable.

It did not come naturally for Louise Lancaster to be involved in a Just Stop Oil protest campaign. She just felt something had to be done about the lack of activity in dealing with global warming. She must have given it a hell of a lot of thought. Initially both Louise and her husband joined marches and signed petitions and wrote to their MP.

They thought people were noticing but they decided that they weren't and at one stage, Louise said to her husband: "Look, we did all of that and nothing changed. We have to do something else."

About 2020 she started to see non-violent direct action as a way of getting the government's attention. And so she became involved in Just Stop Oil's activities. It led to 4 years in jail which I would think will be commuted to 2 years or even less. She is quite happy to be in jail actually and has got her vegan diet organised in prison at last.

She has reassured her kids and has a smile on her face. When her kids saw her off when she went to prison they gave her a hug. Verity, her daughter, burst into tears while "Mum broke into a massive smile".

She told Verity that she was going to be fine and that she will be helping other women in prison fill out forms and would do some online courses and work on her pullups!

She is a lovely woman and this horrendous judge, Judge Christopher Hehir, did the government's bidding and put her in prison for four years because she rented a safe house for the campaigners. She also organised some climbing equipment. She was behind the scenes. She's now front and centre in the mainstream news.

And everything she's done and the punishment she received SCREAMS injustice. Britain has become an unjust place riddled with petty crime. The police don't tackle any shoplifting and they hardly tackle burglaries. Theft, fraud and even large-scale crime is rampant in the UK and it is undermining society. Almost none of it goes punished but Louise Lancaster was severely punished for trying to tell the government to do something about global warming. It is turning justice on its head.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

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