Hundreds of climate activists staged a sit-down protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.
About 30 Metropolitan Police officers asked the Defend Our Juries protesters to move to a designated protest area after they marched a short distance and blocked traffic on the Strand.
Inside, the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales and two other senior judges were hearing an appeal brought by 16 Just Stop Oil activists, who claim their jail sentences were “manifestly excessive”.
Prosecutors say their actions, including climbing on gantries on the M25 and tunnelling under a road leading to an oil terminal, were so “extreme” the sentencing judges had been right not to grant leniency.
On Wednesday, Danny Friedman KC, one of several lawyers representing the activists, told the Court of Appeal – which is based at the Royal Courts of Justice – that some of the sentences were “the highest of their kind in modern British history”.
“They did what they did out of sacrifice,” he added.
In joint written submissions, barristers for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the sentences were “neither wrong in law nor manifestly excessive”.
They argued that leniency would not prevent the activists “engaging in ever-more disruptive campaigns”.
