Court of Appeal confirms prison sentence for pipeline protestor

The Court of Appeal today approved a 112-day prison sentence for a climate change activist who disrupted the building of a pipeline by blocking a construction site in Chertsey, Surrey. The three-judge panel dismissed Scott Breen’s appeal against the sentence, passed by the High Court in September. However, it ruled he should not be fined £1,500. Breen is part of a group of protestors who have been trying to disrupt the construction of 62m-long aviation fuel pipeline being constructed by Esso. The pipeline runs from Southampton to London. He spent more than 30 days dug into the construction site, despite a court order banning him and “persons unknown” from protesting there. He admitted contempt of court for breaking the court order at a hearing in September where he was sentenced. In the ruling handed down today, judge Lord Justice Coulson said that as the contempt had been admitted, the custody threshold had been passed so a prison sentence was justified. Lawyers for Breen argued he should have been handed a suspended sentence rather than an immediate custodial one. Most climate activists who have recently been sentenced for contempt have been handed suspended sentences. However, today’s ruling said the lengths of other recents protests were “relatively short lived”. In this situation, the lower court judge was entitled to rule that “the sheer volume of aggravating factors” justified an immediate sentence, the Court of Appeal ruling said. Even so, the Court of Appeal ruled the lower court judge was “wrong in principle” to impose a fine. “If a fine is sufficient penalty then custody is not an option. In the present case, by contrast, it is agreed the custody threshold was passed so a fine could never have been a sufficient penalty. In those circumstances, there was no principled basis for imposing a fine in addition to the term of imprisonment,” he said. Breen & others v Esso Petroleum Company Ltd Court of Appeal (Coulson LJ, Baker LJ, Dingemans LJ) 26 October 2022