Tory-led North Warwickshire council using public money to protect private oil terminal

North Warwickshire Borough Council are seeking to use public money to make an interim injunction banning protest at Kingsbury oil terminal, permanent. Just Stop Oil supporters took action at the terminal in 2022 and are currently demanding an emergency plan to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030.

North Warwickshire: public money to protect private profit

More than 15 Just Stop Oil supporters, named in the injunction filed by North Warwickshire Borough Council, appeared before Judge Kelly at the Royal Courts of Justice for a hearing that commenced on Tuesday 11th June.

The council, currently under no overall control but Tory-led, aims to extend the injunction against ‘persons unknown’ to prevent all future protests outside the terminal in Tamworth, operated by Shell, Essar, and Valero Energy Corporation.

Lawyers for North Warwickshire Borough Council argued that the interim injunction granted in 2022 should be made permanent to stop protests at the terminal. This effectively means the council is using taxpayers’ money to protect a private oil company facility. Judge Kelly is likely to take a few weeks to reach a decision on whether the injunction can be extended.

In a surprising development, counsel revealed in court that the council would not be seeking costs from any named defendants regarding the injunction.

At the start of the trial, the judge highlighted the council’s failure to comply with a previous order concerning the service of notice to defendants. Some defendants received notice as late as two days before the trial began.

None of the defendants had any legal representation and were informed in court that each individual wishing to give a closing statement in the civil proceedings would need to file a new application, costing £300 each. Ultimately, three supporters made the application in record time and were granted permission by Judge Kelly to deliver closing statements.

Just Stop Oil: trying to stop an existential threat

Alyson Lee was allowed to give a closing statement. In 2022, she was sentenced to 16 days at Foston Hall prison in Derby for holding a sign on a grass verge outside the terminal. In part of her closing statement, she said:

We find ourselves in unprecedented circumstances where governments of the world are supporting the fossil fuel corporations in their genocidal businesses.

There is something particularly distressing about a local authority spending time and resources on protecting one of the richest industries on earth, whilst its own residents are vulnerable to harms caused by that industry (e.g. flooding, heatwaves, food inflation and food insecurity).

The council needs to be putting its time and money into preparing for climate breakdown and protecting its citizens from all the consequences of that.

Another defendant named on the injunction is Chloe Naldrett. She was sent to Foston Hall prison in Derby for six days in 2022, also for holding a sign outside the terminal. She said in part of her closing statement:

The people listed on this injunction did not break it for fun. We did it out of a sense of duty and moral and social responsibility, and because we have tried literally everything else to raise the alarm and try to persuade the Government to respond appropriately to the existential threat that is posed by our relentless heating of the planet.

The group of people named on this injunction includes doctors, social workers, electricians, clergy, teachers, nurses, farmers, students. Deeply moral, deeply responsible, entirely ordinary people. A huge number of us are parents. Many are grandparents. We love our children, our families, our communities, and we love this beautiful, fragile world to which we are doing so much damage.

Ordinary people are being abused by oil companies: not the other way around. I broke this injunction to make a point about how justice in this country can be purchased, and how it is therefore open to exploitation by wealthy companies.

‘Persons unknown’ in North Warwickshire

The trial comes amidst growing criticism of the use of “persons unknown” injunctions, which have proliferated over the past two years.

These injunctions target unknown defendants to ensnare as many individuals as possible, often without their knowledge. Sixteen people have already served up to 85 days in jail for breaching the same injunction that the council now seeks to extend.

On a single day in September 2022, over 50 people were arrested based on this injunction, with six jailed and most receiving two-year suspended sentences.

Friends of the Earth is challenging the use of injunctions against “persons unknown” at the European Court of Human Rights. Katie de Kauwe, a lawyer at Friends of the Earth has described anti-protest injunctions as a “confusing, opaque, parallel system of prohibitions” used by private companies and public authorities to create their own public order laws.

The UN Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders has strongly criticised the draconian clampdown on the right to protest in England and Wales, particularly the use of civil injunctions.

Featured image via Just Stop Oil