Members of Just Stop Oil claim prison officers are more lenient, grant them special privileges and even support their efforts to combat the climate crisis – just days after eight members dodged jail
Just Stop Oil activists have revealed they’re getting cushy treatment behind bars. The eco activists said prison guards were being more lenient toward them, and even granted them special privileges. One claimed officers supported the group, often congratulating their efforts to combat the climate crisis. Our revelation comes hours after eight members, who tried to cause travel disruption at Heathrow last summer, were spared jail. Speaking on the Novara Media podcast, protester George Simonson, who caused traffic chaos on the M25 after climbing a gantry, said: “The guards treat us with more respect and it’s been easier for me to get certain privileges than other people.
“When prison guards find out why I’m here, they will say ‘look – I’m not allowed to say what I think but good on you – or, like, it’s a cause I really respect – you’re paying the price and thank you’. Others have said I shouldn’t be in here, and that kind of thing.” George, released earlier this year, also told how he was granted ‘enhanced status’, which allows prisoners more time outside of their cells each day. Nine activists were sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in west London on Friday for conspiring to cause chaos at the UK’s busiest airport. The group, said to have been participating as part of a wider international campaign, were found with angle grinders and glue before being arrested on July 24 last year. Eight walked free with custodial or suspended sentences, and one remains on remand for spray-painting Stonehenge last June.
Judge Hannah Duncan said the defendants had not breached the perimeter fence and they caused no disruption or “actual harm” but added they had shown “no remorse”. Emma Fielding, prosecuting, added: “The Crown’s case in relation to those defendants is that they were intending to cut their way through the perimeter fence in the two separate groups, so to make two separate cut points in the fence, and to enter the airport.”
Days earlier, JSO poster girl Phoebe Plummer, known for dousing Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ in tomato soup, also avoided prison. The 23-year-old was handed a two-year suspended sentence and 150 hours of unpaid work. In a statement read out to the judge before sentencing, she said: “As you may know, I have been to prison three times, and those who know me personally will know I am fairly upbeat and cheerful about the experience. I will always speak the truth, even when there are attempts to silence me. I will try to act with integrity and be accountable for those actions. And most importantly, that I will always act with love. That means whatever sentence you give me today, it will not deter me from resistance. Not when the alternative is to passively accept evil.”
