Two Just Stop Oil protestors were convicted guilty of creating a public disturbance after they used cables to shut down the Dartford Bridge last year.
On October 17, Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which connects the M25 in Kent and Essex.
The two were found guilty today of public nuisance, which is a behavior that impedes, harms, or inconveniences the community, by Basildon Crown Court.
As the protesters ascended 200 feet above the road, they unfurled a “huge Just Stop Oil banner” and “rigged up hammocks,” according to the prosecution.
This caused ‘gridlock for miles’, prosecutor Adam King said.
‘It was because of the disruption that the incident made national news,’ he said.
‘Morgan Trowland, while up there, arranged interviews with the press and posted on social media from a Just Stop Oil account.
Traffic delays as Just Stop Oil protesters climb Dartford bridge
‘One post was a video of him setting out the group’s demand that the government immediately stop issuing oil licences.’
The bridge was closed from 4am October 17 to 9pm the following day, Mr King added.
Trowland, a civil engineer, and Decker, a teacher, stepped down from the bridge with the help of police and a cherry picker at around 5.30pm.
Mr King told the court: ‘Small businesses lost, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds, people missed loved one’s funerals, children were left on the side of the road waiting for buses.’
Trowland had said in evidence: ‘We climbed it (the bridge) to deliver a warning message, to put up a banner saying Just Stop Oil and to speak that message through interviews with journalists.’
He said the climate change group are hoping the Government will stop licencing oil and gas production, ‘which is putting fuel on the fire of climate change,’ he said.
Trowland, of Islington, north London, and Decker, 34, of no fixed address, denied causing a public nuisance.
They were found guilty by a jury following more than two hours of deliberations.
The two will be sentenced on April 13 with Judge Shane Collery KC remanding them in custody.
‘This court is considering custodial sentences,’ he said, adding: ‘We’re dealing with significant nuisance that’s been caused.’
Decker said at the time of the stunt: ‘Too many people in this country simply don’t know the scale and intensity of climate breakdown as the scientists describe it.
Accusing the political system of ‘betraying the people of this country’, he added: ‘Why isn’t the most existential threat that humanity has ever faced on the news every day?’