Heathrow Five lose appeal against convictions for planning protest that never happened

Five Just Stop Oil supporters who have served prison sentences of up to 15 months for planning an action at Heathrow airport that never took place have had their convictions upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Rosa Hicks, Adam Beard, Sean O’Callaghan, Sally Davidson and Hannah Schafer were among eight Just Stop Oil supporters convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance after standing trial before Judge Duncan at Isleworth Crown Court in March 2025.

A ninth supporter was acquitted and another pleaded guilty before trial. Of the nine convicted, five were given jail terms of up to 15 months, while the remaining four were given suspended sentences.

They were the first people to be jailed in this country for an agreement to take part in nonviolent direct action, where no actual damage or disruption resulted.

Heathrow Five raise questions over jury integrity

In separate appeals heard on 12 May, the five argued that their convictions were unsafe. This followed a report from one juror to the Registrar of the Court of Appeal that another juror had made internet searches about the defendants and the Just Stop Oil campaign and shared highly prejudicial and partially false information within the jury room.

The Appeal heard evidence about the inadequacy of the police investigation that followed the report of misconduct. In particular, the police returned to the suspect juror two electronic devices which were clearly relevant to the case, which compromised them as evidential sources, and made no meaningful efforts to access the suspect juror’s two iPhones. No credible explanation was advanced by the police for these investigative failings.

At a preparatory hearing ahead of the appeal and prior to the suspect juror’s search history data being obtained, the government’s barrister Paul Jarvis claimed that the juror who had reported the jury misconduct was lying despite there being an ongoing police investigation into the matter.

In a ruling on 5 June, three senior judges – Andrew Edis, Maura McGowan and Martin Griffiths dismissed all the grounds for appeal and upheld the conviction.

The appellants released the following statement:

We are sad that the Court of Appeal has chosen to uphold our convictions despite overwhelming evidence that something went very wrong in the jury room, but we are of course not surprised.

The outcome of our appeal today marks a growing trend of using the justice system to crackdown on people trying to hold the powerful to account, be that the fossil fuel industry or the companies selling arms to Israel.

The appeal judgement changes nothing. Last month was the hottest, driest May in the UK since records began and our government and institutions are still failing in their most basic duty to protect us.

Whilst a successful appeal would have come with some personal benefit, our appeal has revealed something much more consequential for the rule of law.

Our conviction was engineered by a Judge who directed the jury to ignore evidence related to the climate crisis, which the judge referred to as a matter of opinion.

This was despite undisputed evidence admitted in court, that global heating will have catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity.

It’s not surprising if trust breaks down when judges actively mislead a jury. That is where the responsibility for juror misconduct lies.

In cases like ours, when it must be obvious to jurors that so much is being kept from them inside the courtroom it makes sense that they might go looking for clues outside.

Throughout the appeal process, there has been a series of delays and misdirections on behalf of the crown. Not only did the police lose key evidence but they made attempts to close the investigation into juror misconduct prior to vital evidence being obtained.

Perhaps most shocking of all, despite an ongoing police investigation into the matter, the lawyer for the CPS repeatedly claimed that the juror who reported the juror misconduct was lying. The police and Crown Prosecution Service maintaining their prosecutions at all costs is not justice.

We did not seek to blame any of the jurors who tried us. We want to thank the juror who came forward to blow the whistle on what happened in the jury room during our trial. They have shown courage and integrity, they didn’t have to speak up, but they did.

The Heathrow 10 were arrested on 24 July 2024, on the first day of the Oil Kills International Uprising to end fossil fuels.

During their trial the judge removed all legal defences from the jury’s consideration, ruled the climate emergency to be ‘irrelevant’ and forbade defendants from mentioning that a jury has a right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience.

The defendants were not permitted to bring expert witnesses on international law or climate science or to show the jury videos they recorded of themselves speaking before the action, nor were they allowed to read the quotes from news articles about their arrests and subsequent remand to prison.

Featured image via Just Stop Oil