TWO Just Stop Oil Supporters from Cumbria have been found guilty of disrupting key roads in central London while demanding the government halt licensing for new UK fossil-fuel projects.

Fiona Prior from Carlisle and Paul Martyn from Ambleside have been fined £480 each, inclusive of costs and court fees.

They appeared before Judge Law at Westminster Magistrates Court answering the charge of Wilful Obstruction of the Highway in relation to blocking the road near Mansion House on October 27 2022. 

The defendants were forbidden from discussing their motivations for causing disruption and no mention of the climate and cost of living crises was permitted by the judge, said a Just Stop Oil spokesman.

“Once again, good people are being silenced from telling the whole truth in court," said the spokesman.

"Recently, an Insulate Britain supporter was sentenced to eight weeks in prison for simply mentioning the climate crisis during their trial. If you were accused of any other crime you would be allowed to discuss your motivations.

“Instead, some judges are choosing to criminalise good citizens, who are using the only options available to them to sound the alarm, whilst the corrupt political and corporate classes are allowed to carry out morally reprehensible, and frankly murderous activity, unimpeded.” 

Paul Martin, 67, a furniture maker from Ambleside, said: “These are not the actions of a government trying to protect the population. These are signs of insanity, and of a species intent on bringing about its own extinction.”

Fiona Prior, 60, a retired primary school teacher and grandmother from Carlisle, said: “I will not stand by while our homes flood, continents burn and crops fail due to carbon being put into our atmosphere. The government must immediately act to protect the lives of the people they are supposed to serve.”