Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner will not be supporting the appeal case for Louise Lancaster, the Grantchester teacher who received a four-year jail sentence in July 2024 for her part in the planning of a non-violent climate breakdown protest on the M25.
The Labour MP has declined to sign the ‘Free Political Prisoners’ letter drafted by the Cambridge branch of the Defend Our Juries campaigning group, which describes the appeal as “an opportunity to apply justice and common sense when our prisons are overflowing, our climate is breaking down and the cost of living crisis deepens”.
The letter to Daniel Zeichner MP asks for his support in the appeal of Grantchester resident Louise Lancaster. Picture: Derek Langley
Mr Zeichner told the Cambridge Independent: “I will always support the right to peaceful protest, but when people break the law and deliberately disrupt the daily lives of tens of thousands of people, they do so in full awareness of the likely consequences.”
Ms Lancaster was one of five defendants convicted by a jury of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance, contrary to section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, on July 11, 2024. The Just Stop Oil protesters were found guilty of planning to disrupt the M25 in November 2022. The plan involved climbing up a number of gantries that cross over the motorway to demand an end to the licensing of new oil and gas.
A Just Stop Oil protest and, inset, Louise Lancaster, from Grantchester who has been jailedMain picture: PA
The 58-year-old is now being held in a category A prison after being given a four-year sentence for her participation in a Zoom call orchestrating the disruption of traffic on the M25 in November 2022.
City councillor Elliot Tong (Abbey, Green Party) said of the appeal case: “Some protests are good and some protests are bad. I’d much prefer it if people targeted their anger at the large companies that are profiting from the climate crisis, but the Green Party firmly believes that peoples’ right to protest must be protected at all cost.
Daniel Zeichner MP
“At the moment, we are seeing the national government hand out unfair sentences as a way to intimidate people that are standing up to them. We must not let our freedom of speech be taken away.”
Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the Aarhus Convention, said the sentences handed down to protesters including Ms Lancaster “violate basic principles of human rights, democratic freedoms and international law”.
Jailed: Lucia Whittaker De Abreu (34), Cressida Gethin (22), Louise Lancaster (58), Daniel Shaw (38), Roger Hallam (57)
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries Cambridge said: “We would ask Daniel Zeichner to reflect on his government’s actions to address the climate emergency and when they will repeal the oppressive Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and The Public Order Act 2023 laws, and accept the consequences of breaking international law themselves.”
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were also approached.