There is no such thing as truly objective morality, but there are some moments in life where we encounter such clear distinctions between right and wrong that we know we must be close. It feels like an objective statement to suggest that shooting a gun through the window of a busy shop, for instance, is a worse than say, throwing paint on a building. These things are both crimes, but it would be an absurdity to claim that non-violent vandalism should be punished more harshly than a potentially deadly attack. But other factors and biases may skew some of our objectivity: irritation that the paint was thrown by a self-important protester or empathy that the shooter was mentally ill or had filled the gun with blanks. These can influence our judgement.
On Friday, two Just Stop Oil activists, Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced to up to two years and 20 months in prison, respectively, after being found guilty of causing £10,000 of damage to the frame of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers 1888 in the National Gallery in 2022. On 14 October 2022, Plummer and Holland threw a can of tomato soup over the painting, which was behind glass, before gluing themselves to the wall beneath it. The crime was classed as a Category One harm, causing serious consequential economic or social impact. The sentencing from the judge, Christopher Hehir, appeared especially harsh.
“The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass,” he said, also factoring in that “soup might have seeped through the glass” in his judgement. He barred any mention of the climate crisis in their defence and described Plummer and Holland as “arrogant” and “criminally idiotic”. After Plummer referred to themselves as “a political prisoner,” Hehir interrupted to say, “We don’t have political prisoners in this country” and said that the suggestion was “ludicrous, self-indulgent and offensive”.
It is not the first time Hehir has ruled that evidence relating to climate change could not be used in a defence. In July, he sentenced four other Just Stop Oil activists to four years in prison – and one activist to five years – for planning to peacefully block the M25 in November 2022. These are believed to be the longest ever meted out in the UK for non-violent protest. They were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance after Hehir called their arguments around the climate “irrelevant and inadmissible” and said they could only be referred to as the defendants’ “political and philosophical beliefs”. This stipulation was ignored: the defendants spoke about global warming and told the jury they were being denied important evidence, and were found in contempt and removed from court. Hehir described them as “fanatics”. A post on X circulated widely in response showed that the average sentence for crimes of violence is just 1.7 years. The human rights barrister Adam Wagner said it is “indisputable that the sentences for these kind of non-violent but (highly) disruptive protests have been increasing very quickly”.
Last September, the same judge gave a suspended sentence to the sex offender Seth Kneller after he crashed his car into the gates of Downing Street. “Your violent attack on it must be regarded by the courts as being of the utmost seriousness,” Hehir said, before sparing Kneller prison – which would have been up to 15 months – and instead sentencing him to complete 57 cumulative rehabilitation days, citing Kneller’s mental health, early guilty plea, lack of previous convictions and his “good prospect” of rehabilitation. Just Stop Oil protestors couldn’t mention the existential threat of climate breakdown as vital context for their actions, but Kneller was allowed to cite autism, ADHD and diabetes as arguments for his attack on Downing Street.
Comparing sentences is never straightforward – Kneller was charged with dangerous driving, not criminal damage, and so was subject to different sentencing guidelines. He also pled guilty, unlike the Just Stop Oil protestors: a defendant who pleads guilty will always get a substantially shorter sentence than if they went to trial. But it’s difficult for any rational person to comprehend how our justice system might enable to Kneller receive a dramatically shorter sentence than someone who threw soup on a meticulously protected painting. (Just Stop Oil deliberately targets art that they know won’t be harmed by their methods.) One person ran a car into a government building, risking lives, while seven others made people potentially late for work and temporarily damaged a painting’s frame. Who do you think should be sent to prison?
What should cause shock and horror at this decision is not around the question of the Just Stop Oil activists’ guilt or innocence: the definitions of and potential punishments for a crime are embedded in clear legal frameworks, even if some believe they are flawed. But we should be horrified by such extreme sentences for non-violent protests, ones which, in the words of legal correspondent Haroon Siddique, “sent shock waves through the protest community and beyond”. In the case of Plummer and Holland, it’s hard to see how the punishment is at all proportional to their crime. Hehir may not see the relevance of the climate crisis in this trial. But even without this vital context, I’m not sure anyone could look at this sentencing and seriously call it justice.
