JUST STOP OIL (JSO) supporters convicted of causing public nuisance by planning to disrupt the M25 to demand an end to new oil and gas licencing have been found guilty.

JSO co-founder Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, Louise Lancaster and Cressida Gethin have been remanded until their sentencing hearing next Thursday and face lengthy prison sentences, despite the United Nations’ condemnation of the trial.

The jury entered guilty verdicts against all defendants yesterday, ruling that the climate crisis was “irrelevant” to the trial.

In her closing statement, 22-year-old Ms Gethin said: “People are dying already, my generation is being cast into the dust.

“We are told this is a functioning democracy, but that direct actions like this are not justified.

“It is in that democracy that no-one has been held responsible for the billions of pounds wasted on PPE, for the lives lost in Grenfell Tower, for the Post Office scandal.

“Is it justice when the powerful are not held to account, and citizens are prosecuted for calling them out?”

The ruling comes as new Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea.