An Insulate Britain protester has been sentenced to five weeks in prison for obstructing a motorway.
10,000 drivers were affected when Stephen Pritchard and three other protesters glued themselves to the tarmac on the M4 near Heathrow, West London, in October 2021.
According to the BBC:
At Inner London Crown Court, 63-year-old Pritchard was convicted by a jury of causing a nuisance to the public.
His co-defendants, former probation officer Ruth Cook, 71, gardener Roman Paluch-Machnik, 29, and carpenter Oliver Rock, 42, were each given six-week sentences, suspended for 18 months.
The three were also ordered to do 100 hours of community service.
Judge Silas Reid told Pritchard, a former parish councillor, that he was being jailed because he previously told the court that he would not stop taking part in disruptive action, as a matter of “conscience”.
The other defendants previously said they had been deterred from future disruptive protest action.
Judge Reid told Pritchard: “It is not appropriate for me to suspend the inevitable sentence… you will serve up to half of your sentence in prison.”
Speaking to all four defendants, he said: “None of you have shown any remorse for your actions and in fact wear them with pride.”
Last month, Pritchard received a a short jail sentence for defying a court order that prevented him and four others from protesting on the M25.
High Court injunctions were put in place after Insulate Britain’s road blockades last year.
