A Just Stop Oil march earlier this month

CLIMATE activists were arrested “within 30 seconds” of assembling in Trafalgar Square this week by police using powerful legislation banning disruptive protests.

The Just Stop Oil group has been marching this month in defiance of the Public Order Act that has led to 612 arrests.

Nine of its members – most are young people – have been sent to prison, including Phoebe Plummer, the young woman who staged a tinned soup protest in the National Gallery last year.

JSO is using peaceful direct action to pressure the government to stop the exploration and use of fossil fuels that are endangering the planet.

The government earlier this year introduced legislation criminalising any demonstrations that the police consider to be causing a public nuisance.

Speaking before the protest in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday, Greg Sculthorpe, 37, said: “This is legislation that was written with the aid of an oil company-funded think-tank. Do these seem like the actions of a liberal democracy or tin-pot dictatorship? We must do our civic duty and do everything we can to stop these criminals in government from destroying the lives and futures of ordinary people.”

Nine people have been sent to prison: Cressie Gethin, 21, Noah Crane, 18, Ella Ward, 20, Ruby Hamill, 19, Chiara Sarti, 24, Phoebe Plummer. 22, and Sam Griffiths 48. And Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker were imprisoned last year, to three years and two years seven months respectively.

The charges are brought under Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023. The Metropolitan Police Service say a protester can be taken in if they “intentionally or recklessly interfere with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure” or “disproportionately interferes with ‘road transport infrastructure’”.

Another protester Callum Goode, 24, a mathematics graduate from Ashbourne, said: “I know what I’m risking, that I’ll likely be sent to prison for continuing to peacefully march.

“If I refuse to act in non-violent resistance I am complicit in this government’s acts of oblique genocide.”

“I’m terrified for the future, a future of unimaginable suffering, starvation and death that new oil and gas will lock in.”

A spokesman for the MPS said: “Officers have arrested 15 Just Stop Oil activists following the slow march on Whitehall. Arrests were made under Section 7 of the Public Order Act.”