Three Kendal women from the Just Stop Oil coalition have been fined for defying a High Court injunction prohibiting protest outside the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.

Margaret Reid, 51, Catherine Rennie-Nash, 72, and Gwen Harrison, 44, appeared before the High Court for the fourth time in two weeks having repeatedly and deliberately defied the injunction, brought by North Warwickshire Borough Council.

They were among 26 people arrested while standing on the grass verge outside the site with a placard, which was prohibited under the terms of the interim injunction, and carries a potential two-year jail term, seizure of assets and unlimited fines.

 

All of them told the judge they would continue to defy the injunction by protesting at the site again and they continued to explain why they defied the injunction after the judge demanded they stop talking.

The Westmorland Gazette: CAMPAIGNING: Kendal's Margaret Reid (2nd from left) outside Kingsbury Oil Terminal immediately before her arrest CAMPAIGNING: Kendal's Margaret Reid (2nd from left) outside Kingsbury Oil Terminal immediately before her arrest

Reid was brought to court directly from prison, where she had been held on remand for over a week after skipping her previous High Court hearing to protest again with 10 others outside the oil terminal.

The judge told her she would have received a custodial sentence but released her because of the time she had already served.

In court she said to the judge: “The council has declared a climate emergency yet they have chosen for anyone protesting against the climate crisis to be criminalised. The injunction is preventing people protesting on a grass verge outside an oil terminal in a climate emergency - it’s absurd.”

Supporters of the Just Stop Oil coalition are demanding that the Government stops issuing new oil and gas licenses.

The Westmorland Gazette: CAMPAIGNERS: Kendal's Margaret Reid (far right) outside Kingsbury Oil Terminal immediately before her arrestCAMPAIGNERS: Kendal's Margaret Reid (far right) outside Kingsbury Oil Terminal immediately before her arrest (Image: Just Stop Oil)

Rennie-Nash, a grandmother of two, said: “We have been told by the government's former chief scientific advisor that we have three to four years to act on the climate crisis or we effectively lock-in human extinction.

“That terrifies me beyond words and is moral and economic madness. My conscience will not allow me to stand by and watch while my grandchildren's future and the future of all their generation and beyond is stolen from them.

“That is why I’m risking prison and enormous fines and why I will be in civil resistance until the Government stops ploughing ahead with new fossil fuel projects.”

Harrison, ahead of her court hearing, said: “Eleven of our friends are in prison because they stood on a grass verge with a placard and had the bravery to ignore their court hearing to go back and protest instead.

“We’re facing the annihilation of human civilisation within our lifetime unless we pull out all the stops to prevent it. The Government knows this yet for some inexplicable reason plans to go ahead with 40 new oil and gas projects later this year.

“Our only option now, in the vanishingly short time we have left, is to force them to act through nonviolent civil resistance.”