‘SOMEBODY’S GOING TO DIE’
Police chief’s warning after an officer is injured during M-way protest
A CHIEF constable yesterday said ‘someone is going to get killed’ after eco activists blocked the M25 for a third straight day.
Ben- Julian Harrington, who heads Essex Police, issued the warning after a motorcycle officer was injured in an accident at a protest.
Just Stop Oil targeted multiple locations yesterday by scaling gantries and padlocking themselves in place before 6.30am – 30 minutes earlier than on Monday and Tuesday.
The mayhem continued until lunchtime, despite National Highways securing a High Court injunction this week to prevent disruption on Britain’s busiest motorway, with penalties including jail time.
Speaking after his officer was injured, Mr Harrington accused Just Stop Oil of being ‘selfish’, adding: ‘JSO have got to grow up. They’ve got to realise someone is going to get killed.’ He insisted police forces had sufficient powers to tackle the activists: ‘It’s not like they’ve outwitted us. We are making arrests, we are gathering evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service are authorising charges and people are being remanded, so the powers and legislation are there.’
But he was later effectively contradicted by Rishi Sunak, who said the Government was moving ahead with legislation to allow police to prevent the protests.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the ‘irresponsible and dangerous protests which are putting lives at risk’.
But she also turned her fire on the Government, saying that Labour had ‘called for months for a simpler injunction process, as well as supporting higher sentences for protesters who block dangerous roads’.
Motorists were left fuming by the severe delays, with one tweeting: ‘Any protester that costs people money or health should be sent to prison and be made to pay costs.’
Another commuting to London wrote: ‘Their cause is right but for God’s sake people are trying to get to work, life’s hard enough at the moment and I don’t need these idiots making it harder.’
One driver revealed he missed the birth of his child during Tuesday’s protests, saying: ‘She was alone while I was stuck on the M25 desperately trying to reach the hospital. Unforgivable.’
Around a dozen protesters brought huge stretches of the ring road to a standstill at junctions around the motorway, affecting traffic in both directions.
The police officer was injured between junction 26 (Waltham Abbey) and 27 (Theydon) in Essex as he performed a rolling roadblock.
He was saved from serious injury by safety equipment including a jacket with built-in airbag.
A motorist told the Mail: ‘I was driving along at 6.21am when a woman started climbing a concrete pole.
‘A police officer on a motorbike swerved to try and stop her and collided with a lorry, which then crashed into another lorry.’
Mr Harrington said the lorries collided and ‘as a result, one of my officers on a motorcycle has come off’. Two protesters were arrested.
Scotland Yard needed a JCB digger to remove an activist from a gantry near junctions 24 and 25.
The force said: ‘Locks add more complexity for our removal teams and the overall process becomes longer.’
Protester Isabel Rock, 41, an artist from London, said: ‘I’m doing this for my baby nephew and his unborn sister. I want them to have a chance at the future. The Government is responsible for criminal inaction on the climate crisis. They should be in prison, not me.’
JSO, which wants an end to new gas and oil licences, said in a statement: ‘The collision of two lorries and the injury of a police officer on the M25 this morning is an awful situation. The level of disruption on the M25 should not be happening – people are rightly angry and frustrated.
‘The impact on people’s lives is huge. In normal circumstances, this would be unacceptable. It should never have come to this but the failure of our politics has left us with no other option.’
‘Should never have come to this’