The founder of Extinction Rebellion has been jailed for five years in what is believed to be the longest sentence for non-violent protest in the UK.

Roger Hallam was found guilty of conspiring to block traffic as part of a Just Stop Oil campaign on the M25 over four days of disruption in November 2022.

Video published by Just Stop Oil showed crowds cheering as Hallam and his co-conspirators arrived at Southwark Crown Court for sentencing on Thursday morning.

Four other activists were given four-year sentences for the protests, in which demonstrators climbed the gantry above the motorway and displayed Just Stop Oil banners.

The court heard that each of the defendants had recruited activists over a Zoom call to take part in the demonstration, which the prosecution said had caused economic damage of nearly £750,000 and cost the police £1 million.

Daniel Shaw, 38, from Northampton, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 34, from Derby, Louise Lancaster, 58, from Cambridge, and Cressida Gethin, 22, from Hereford, were all sentenced to four years in prison.

During the protests the activists organised height training and rehearsed a “blue lights policy” to let police pass.

The disruption allegedly caused more than 50,000 hours of traffic delay, affecting the journeys of more than 700,000 vehicles, and left a police officer suffering concussion and bruising after he was knocked off his motorbike in traffic.

Judge Christopher Hehir said the fact protests were organised over a Zoom call, which was infiltrated by a journalist from The Sun, showed the protests were “intricately planned” and was “compelling evidence” of a conspiracy.

Passing the sentence, he said: “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns are shared by many, but the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.

“You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.”

The five activists, who were dubbed the Whole Truth Five by Just Stop Oil, were convicted by a jury of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance under section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, on July 11.

During the trial the judge had repeatedly tried to stop Mr Hallam, who was defending, from trying to lecture the jury on points of law, but he was allowed to discuss the threat of climate change and how it justified his actions at length.

The court heard that AirBnBs were booked near to the gantries and used as “safe houses” where the activists would go two days before their “climb”.

During the call to arrange the demonstration, Mr Hallam said it had “the potential to create gridlock”.

“It makes it absolutely impossible for this government to ignore,” he said. ‘It has to be done, it has to be done, that is what I have got to say.”

‘People missed flights, funerals and cancer appointments’

Judge Hehir said the disruption had affected every section of the motorway, one of the most important road links around London.

“People missed flights, people missed funerals, students were delayed for their mock exam,” he said. “A child with special needs on his way to school missed part of the school day and his medication which placed the taxi driver at risk as he can become volatile without his medication.

“An individual suffering from aggressive cancer missed an appointment as a cancer patient and had to wait another two months for another appointment.”

Twelve climbers were arrested on Nov 9 and a further eight on Nov 10. The sentences passed those handed out last year to two other Just Stop Oil activists who were hailed for climbing the Queen Elizabeth II bridge on the Dartford Crossing, and is believed to be the longest handed out for non-violent protest.

Sir David King, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, said the sentences were “disgraceful” and called on Labour to change the approach of the courts.

“We are all hoping that the change in UK Government will also change the situation in our courts,” he said.

Amy Cameron, Greenpeace UK’s programme director, said the sentences were “a dark day for the right to protest, a pillar of our democracy”.

“What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call?” she added.

Sentence ‘potentially unlawful’ under international law

On the first day of the trial Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, described the threat of a two-year prison sentence for Daniel Shaw as “appalling” and potentially unlawful under international law.

He said: “I have been informed that Mr Shaw may reasonably expect to face a prison sentence of up to two years (or more) for, in essence, his participation in a Zoom call to discuss a proposed peaceful environmental protest.

“The imposition of such sanction is not only appalling but may also violate the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law.”

Packham: Sentences are ‘disproportionately high’

Speaking after the protesters, TV naturalist Chris Packham said: “At this point I feel physically sick, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt that in this way ever before.

“I’ve just watched what can only be described as judicial thuggery, a total disregard for any mitigation circumstances when it came to sentencing. Disproportionately high sentences given to peaceful climate protesters in a world which is on fire.

“In a world which is burning and flooding. In a world in the midst of a biodiversity crisis.”

He added: “It’s terrifying that this is happening in the UK we must do everything we can to push back for our right to peaceful protest. We must be clear, today it’s about the climate, tomorrow it could be about something else. This is a terrifying, terrifying result today.

“I’ve been in those delays caused by Just Stop Oil protesters. I’ve suffered those inconveniences, not to the same degree that I’ve missed a funeral or missed a hospital appointment or anything of that level. But can I just say that at this point we need to look at the bigger picture on a global scale. Think about our entire species.

“Turn on your social media this evening, look at the flooding, look at the fires, look at people’s homes and livelihoods being destroyed all over the world, thats coming here. Football didn’t come home but climate breakdown will.”

A former professional Strictly Come Dancing star has claimed a video montage where he threatens to drag his celebrity partner across the floor was deliberately edited by the BBC to make him look bad.

Footage has been unearthed showing James Jordan telling Georgina Bouzova, the Casualty actress, he would “drag her across the floor and scream at her” if she forgot her dance steps.

The video was filmed and broadcast in the programme’s fourth series in 2006, with the dance partners seen training for a live performance.

Mr Jordan also addresses Ms Bouzova and says “I will kill you”.

He then speaks to the camera and is filmed “unless she has physically broken a rib, I don’t care”.

However Mr Jordan has insisted the video was “highly produced and exaggerated” and said it was edited “for the purposes of entertainment” to make him look like the bad guy.

Taking to Instagram, Mr Jordan added that there is “no comparison” to be drawn between the video clip and allegations against two other Strictly Dancers, Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima by their former celebrity dance partners Zara McDermott and Amanda Abbington.

The BBC show has been plunged into crisis after allegations of bullying were made against Pernice and claims of physical and verbal abuse against Di Prima during rehearsals.

Both dancers have left the show. Pernice has denied the allegations and vowed to clear his name.

Di Prima said that he “deeply regrets” the events that led to his departure, adding: “My intense determination to win might have affected my training regime.”

He said he would share his story “when the time is right”.

Posting a picture of himself dancing with Ms Bouzova on Instagram, Mr Jordan wrote that he deplores “bullying or abusiveness in the workplace”.

He said: “I just wanted to reassure you that footage was shot and edited together by the BBC team for transmission on It Takes Two 18 years ago in specific ways for the purposes of entertainment.

“Many of the clips were not related to Georgina at all (they are not allowed to do that these days as it misrepresents what actually happened) but were included for the purpose of exaggeration.

“The BBC thought it would be fun to put this VT together in the way they did. You can see Georgina laughing about it in the studio and in the clips… And I have never received any complaints from any of my celebrity dance partners in the eight years I was on the show.

“Obviously if I had genuinely upset anyone, that footage would never have been allowed to be used in that way by the BBC themselves.

“The producers loved to paint me as the bad guy and I played along… always a perfectionist … but I would never have deliberately upset anyone and pride myself on good friendships with my celebrity dance partners.”

David Lammy has refused to say whether he was wrong about Donald Trump, after previously calling the former US president a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.

The Foreign Secretary said Trump had the “thickest of skins” after he was challenged over comments he made as a backbench MP in 2018 and if it could affect UK-US relations if the Republican nominee wins November’s presidential election.

Mr Lammy told BBC Breakfast: “Donald Trump is the biggest, in many ways, of political characters we have at this point on the planet.

“Lots of people have had things to say, but in our common interests, with security as a central challenge in the global community – war in the Middle East, war in Europe – with tremendous challenges for costs of living across the globe, there is a lot of common cause that the UK can strike with the US, and we will do that with whomever is in the White House.”

The Foreign Secretary added: “There is a lot of rhetoric, but look at the action. He was the first to give Javelins to Ukraine after 2015. He talked about withdrawing from Nato, he actually increased troops to Nato.

“So in a grown-up world, in the national interests of this country, of course, if the American people choose Donald Trump as their president, we will work as closely with him as we can, and we will seek to influence him where we disagree.”

Mr Lammy wrote an article for Time magazine in 2018 in which he described Trump as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” who was a “profound threat to the international order”.

He added: “I will be one of tens of thousands on the streets, protesting against our government’s capitulation to this tyrant in a toupée.”

In more recent comments dating back to 2021, when he was in the shadow Cabinet, he said: “Donald Trump’s entire presidency has been a reign of recklessness, narcissism and delusion.”

The Tottenham MP has strained to establish positive relations with the Republican Party both in Opposition and now in Government, including meetings with JD Vance, who has been picked as Mr Trump’s running mate.

He told Sky News this week: “What I would say about JD Vance is that we were able to find common ground.

“We’re both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family, which we’ve written about, both of us Christians, and now I’ve met him on a few occasions, and we have been able to find common ground and get on.”

The Foreign Secretary said that he did not “recognise” Mr Vance’s recent comments about Labour turning the UK into the world’s first Islamist nuclear country.

There was speculation prior to the general election that Mr Lammy might not be handed the foreign secretary brief in Government, having held the shadow position for three years.

Names including Douglas Alexander, a close ally of Gordon Brown, or David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, were mooted as possible appointments to the role.

Two teenagers found guilty of murder when they were just 13 and 14 can be named and pictured for the first time.

Kyle Dermody, now 15, was convicted for stabbing Nathaniel Shani, 14, in the neck in Harpurhey, Manchester, following a row over stolen cannabis.

Trey Stewart-Gayle, 14, was also convicted of murder. Stewart-Gayle, then 13, who had been armed with a screwdriver, was found to have “encouraged and assisted” Dermody.

Following an application by the media, a judge lifted a ban on publishing their names because of “substantial public interest”.

In a ruling, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen said: “The public will wish to know the identities of those who commit such a serious offence in seeking to understand how it is that children of that age can do so. 

“Knife crime in general and the circumstances of this particular case are matters of substantial public interest.”

Dermody must serve at least 13 years, while Stewart-Gayle was ordered to be detained for at least 10 years.

It comes after two 12-year-old boys became Britain’s youngest murderers since James Bulger’s killers when they were found guilty of knifing Shawn Seesahai, 19, to death in Wolverhampton park.

Sentencing Dermody and Stewart-Gayle, the judge said: “That [Nathaniel Shani] should have met his death by boys of a similar age is a tragedy – sadly it is no longer shocking.”

Shani and Dermody, who had previously been friends and attended Manchester Communications Academy together, had met in an alleyway off Tavistock Square on Sep 15 last year as part of a “fight to settle differences”.

There had previously been a “fall out” between Dermody and Nathaniel and they had “engaged in physical fights”, the court was told.

Prior to his death, Shani had become involved in “street level” drug dealing “through people older than him”.

On the day of the killing, cannabis had been stolen from a friend of Shani’s by Stewart-Gayle. Shani was said to have viewed the incident as a “loss of face” and was “determined” to get the drugs back.

An arrangement was made for a “one v one fight” to “sort things”. During the confrontation Shani punched Dermody, who produced a knife and stabbed him in the neck. Stewart-Gayle told Dermody to “do it” after he had produced the weapon.

Shani was pronounced dead at 7.08pm.

During the trial, Dermody claimed he was acting in self-defence, telling the court he believed Shani had a knife.

Stewart-Gayle handed himself in to police the following day and admitted to carrying the screwdriver but denied intent to use it. Both boys were found guilty of murder after a trial.

The judge concluded: “Whatever his flaws, Nathaniel did not deserve to die and not in such a violent way. He deserved the opportunity to better himself and to make a positive contribution to society.

“Unlike you, and by reason of your senseless behaviour, he will never now be able to do so.”

The Pret A Manger subscription will no longer include free coffees after the chain deemed that the deal was “too good to be true”.

From September, the “Club Pret” subscription benefits will only offer half-price drinks, for a reduced monthly fee of £10, the sandwich and coffee chain said in a statement.

Customers will be offered the discount for £5 until the end of March next year.

The subscription, which was launched at the height of the pandemic, originally cost £20 and entitled members to five free drinks a day, covering anything made by its baristas.

But the chain was forced to hike the price of the membership, first to £25 in February 2022 and then to £30 in April last year.

Clare Clough, Pret’s managing director, said: “It’s almost four years since we introduced our coffee subscription at the height of the pandemic, and I’m proud of the role Club Pret has played for us and our customers since.

“It was an innovative way to reconnect with our loyal customers and introduce Pret to tens of thousands of new ones, bringing customers back into our shops with an offer that almost seemed ‘too good to be true’.

“Four years and over a quarter of a billion coffees later, we have decided that it’s time to rethink how it works.”

Pret will also remove the current 20 per cent discount on food, ending its dual-pricing scheme.

Ms Clough added: “We know this is a change. But with Club Pret subscription, our coffees, teas, Coolers and iced drinks will continue to be the best offer on the high street, and at a much more accessible price than the £360 a year people have to pay for the current scheme.”

The “Club Pret” scheme, as it was renamed last year, has proven to be more costly than expected for the company.

In theory, it meant that each customer could drink £400 worth of coffee each month, paying only £30 for the privilege.

It proved immensely popular. While Pret’s chief executive had expected up to 3,000 people to sign up on the scheme’s first day, by 3pm more than 16,500 had.

A staple of office life

Demand for the subscription continued to rise and by April 2023 it was being used 1.25 million times a week.

It became such a staple of office life that the so-called “Pret Index”, which tracked footfall in its shops, illustrating the slow return to normality, was launched.

High demand for the scheme, which was designed to get office workers back into coffee shops after the pandemic, delivered Pret’s first profitable year since 2018. It announced that sales had grown by 20.2 per cent for the first half of 2023, compared with the year before.

But the change comes after some customers abandoned their subscriptions saying they were “no longer worth it”.

The deal could not be used in motorway service stations or abroad and there were complaints that some of the drinks on offer were rarely available.

A clampdown on coffee drinkers sharing Pret accounts caused heavy criticism when customers experienced technical glitches with the company’s app. Some could not use their QR codes to claim their free drinks, while others said they had seen rewards removed from their apps.

Julian Metcalfe, Pret’s co-founder, told The Telegraph at the time that the chain had “let down” customers.