THIRTY people turned their backs on judges today to reveal T-shirts reading “corruption in court,” after it was announced that only six years would be shaved off a 41-year prison sentence for climate protesters involved in peaceful action.

In January, a rare mass appeal was held for 16 Just Stop Oil (JSO) protesters who were handed the draconian sentences last year.

Today, only six of them saw their sentences reduced in a ruling that has been condemned as having “no place in a democracy that upholds the right to protest.”

Among them were the “Whole Truth Five,” who sparked outrage after being given record-breaking sentences for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” after organising a protest on the M25 over Zoom.

JSO founder Roger Hallam, who was handed the longest sentence, five years, saw his jail time reduced to four.

Cressia Gethin, Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, who were originally handed four years each, saw their sentences moderately cut to between 2.5 and three years.

The only other protester who saw a reduction was 78-year old Gaie Delap, whose sentence for participating in an M25 protest was cut from 20 to 18 months.

All 16 protesters had been taking part in non-violent actions calling on the government stop issuing new oil and gas licences, a demand which has now been met.

Among the challenges thrown out were that of Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who were sentenced to two years and 20 months for throwing soup on glass covering Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

After the ruling, Ms Plummer said in a statement that Britain’s democracy is being “sold off to the highest bidder,” with the nation’s courts “corrupted by the oil and arms industries.”

The harsh sentences were imposed last year after now-sacked extremism adviser Lord Walney released a report agitating for tougher punishments on activists while pocketing money from arms and fossil fuel companies as a paid lobbyist.

At today’s ruling, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr acknowledged that “conscientious motivation” was a “factor relevant to sentencing in each case,” but that this “did not preclude a finding that any appellant’s culpability was still high.”

Last year, in cases such as the Whole Truth Five, activists were repeatedly prevented from talking about climate change during trial.

The claimants’ lawyer, Raj Chada, said his team would be reviewing the judgement and considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Extinction Rebellion said the sentences were “only made possible by legislation written by think tanks funded by fossil fuel companies and other powerful interests.”

Policy Exchange, an oil industry-funded think tank, has been credited as helping shape the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act under which some of the protesters were sentenced through its 2019 report Extremism Rebellion.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s director of campaigns, said the ruling highlighted the urgent need for Britain’s protest laws to be revised.

“We call on the UK government to drop the new anti-protest laws that they have just tabled themselves and institute a fully independent and public review of the protest laws that have been passed in recent years.

Areeba Hamid, Greenpeace UK co-executive director, said the sentences “have no place in a democracy that upholds the right to protest.”

The long sentences are upheld as the prison system grapples with an overcrowding crisis which led the government to implement an early release plan last year.

Just Stop Oil said in a statement: “To consider what the Just Stop Oil 16 have done without considering the horror of a heating world, of billions dying in the coming decades, without recognising that our current economic system risks ending the rule of law and ordered civil society, is frankly immoral. 

“Today’s ruling is another nail in the crucifixion of justice.”