‘We’re like Martin Luther King’: Insulate Britain jailed

It looks like a winter lockdown has come early for some. Nine Insulate Britain members have been jailed at the High Court today, after breaching injunctions designed to prevent disruptive protests. Despite the eco-activists’ protests – with one tearfully telling LBC that ‘I’m crapping myself this morning and I feel like crying’ – judge Dame Victoria Sharp said there was no alternative to custodial sentences, given the severity of their actions and their expressed intention to further flout court orders.

She said: ‘The defendants, or some of them, seem to want to be martyrs for their cause, and the media campaign surrounding this hearing appears designed to suggest this. We, however, have to act dispassionately and proportionately.’ All the activists will spend Christmas behind bars; Ana Heyatawin, 58, and Louis McKechnie, 20, were jailed for three months, while Ben Buse, 36, Roman Paluch-Machnik, 28, Oliver Rock, 41, Emma Smart, 44, Tim Speers, 36, and James Thomas, 47, received four-month sentences.