A Just Stop Oil protester has been convicted of causing a nuisance by climbing onto a gantry over the M25.
Cambridge University music student Cressida Gethin, 22, scaled the gantry to protest the UK reaching its hottest temperature on record, 40C.
On Monday at Isleworth Crown Court a jury found Gethin guilty of causing a public nuisance contrary to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
The jury found her guilty by a majority of 10 to two.
During her trial the court heard the protest on July 20 2022 delayed 3,923 British Airways passengers’ journeys.
BBC broadcaster Chris Packham told the jury he was stuck in four to five hours of traffic.
Gethin did not dispute scaling the gantry but argued that the consequence did not amount to the charge.
In her closing statement on Thursday, Gethin, who was self-represented, told the court: “If you believed that the protest causing the delays was intended to create meaningful, positive change, would you have defined the delay as ‘serious inconvenience’?
“Or would you have experienced it as a proportionate and manageable inconvenience? Given that the policy change the protest was seeking to achieve would literally save thousands of lives in the coming decades.”
However, Judge Hannah Duncan said “evidence about climate change wasn’t admissible or relevant”.
On Friday, Judge Duncan said she believed the average person would consider the climate crisis “far more serious” than a nuisance, but that “that’s not what they (the jury) are considering”.
Gethin will be sentenced on May 3.
