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© Copyright, Public Defender Service 2025.

The sentencing of protesters

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Although ‘Just Stop Oil’ have announced a cessation of their protests such activities seem to have become more common and as such the Court of Appeal decision in Hallam [2025] EWCA Crim 199 offers valuable guidance  regarding peaceful, but disruptive, protests.  The court dealt with 16 appellants from ‘Just Stop Oil’ who had been sentenced for various protests which caused serious disruption including protesters climbing or attempting to climb various gantries across the M25 and the ‘Sunflower Case’ (Soup thrown at van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ painting). The court identified the following central principles:

  1. The exercise of sentencing in cases of non-violent protests is to be carried out in accordance with normal sentencing principles.
  • The correct approach to issues that may arise when sentencing in cases of non-violent protests, such as conscientious motivation and deterrence, was considered authoritatively in R v Trowland [2023] EWCA Crim 919.
  • The sentencing exercise in cases of non-violent protest should not be over-complicated because of the engagement of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Whether or not Articles 10 (Freedom of Expression)  and/or 11 of the ECHR (Freedom of Peaceful Assembly)) are engaged should be simple; if engaged, the court then has to carry out what should be a straightforward proportionality exercise. There should be no need to make extensive reference to domestic or international authorities. If the common law principles in Trowland are properly applied the defendant’s ECHR rights should be properly observed.
  •  References to the sentencing outcomes in different cases are unlikely to be helpful, since each case will turn on its own facts. It can also be dangerous. An approach that takes the 3 year sentence in Trowland as a benchmark was undesirable and risked unwarranted sentence inflation (the court stating that the sentence in Trowland was severe and ‘arguably manifestly excessive’).

In each of the appeals, the appellant conscientious motivation was a relevant factor as stated in Trowland. An appellant’s rights under Article 10 and 11 were engaged even if it did not offer a defence and any sentence imposed should not be a disproportionate interference with those rights.

Conscientious motivation fell most logically to be considered when assessing culpability but this did not preclude a finding that culpability was high.

The Court then went on to consider the sentences imposed in the appeals reducing the length of some on the basis that they were manifestly excessive and where no account had been given by the sentencing judge to their conscientious motivation.