The co-founder of Extinction Rebellion has been given a record five-year prison sentence after a judge said he had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.

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.

The Attorney General was under pressure on Thursday night to intervene over the sentences meted out to Mr Hallam, who also set up Just Stop Oil, and his co-conspirators, which are the longest for non-violent protest in living memory.

Four other eco-activists were each given four-year sentences after they were found guilty of conspiring to block traffic on the M25.

The sentences were welcomed by Tory MPs, but widely condemned by celebrities Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and green campaigners including Labour’s biggest corporate donor.

The case threatens to become a cause celebre among Labour activists, opening up a potential rift in the party for Sir Keir Starmer.

In opposition, Labour voted against the policing Bill that introduced the new powers to jail the activists.

Dale Vince, the green energy tycoon who gave £1 million to Labour earlier in 2024, urged the Prime Minister to step in to reverse the “injustice” while supporters cheered as the prisoners were taken from court to prison on Thursday afternoon.

The sentences also attracted international condemnation with the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders describing it as a “dark day” in an intervention that will infuriate lawmakers who have tried to clampdown on disruptive eco-protests.

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

The protests unfolded over four days from Nov 7, with 45 activists climbing up different gantries across the M25.

Hallam and his fellow defendants were prosecuted under a new law of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance introduced by the last Tory government in an attempt to crack down on disruptive protests.

Judge Christopher Hehir told the five eco-plotters: “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 judge said the protests organised over a Zoom call had been “intricately planned”.

During the online conference call to arrange the demonstration, Hallam had boasted of “the potential to create gridlock”, telling activists: “It makes it absolutely impossible for this government to ignore… It has to be done, it has to be done, that is what I have got to say.”

The five protest organisers were convicted of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance. The court heard they organised “height training”, teaching activists how to climb motorway gantries, and rehearsed a “blue lights policy” to let police pass on the motorway.

Only two of the protesters jailed on Thursday – Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, 34, and Cressida Gethin, 22 – intended to climb the gantries, while Hallam, Daniel Shaw, 38 and Louise Lancaster, 58, remained on the ground.

Judge Hehir said the disruption had affected every section of the motorway, the crucial artery around London.

The disruption allegedly caused more than 50,000 hours of traffic delay, affecting the journeys of more than 700,000 vehicles. Two lorries collided and an Essex police officer suffered concussion and bruising after he was knocked off his motorbike in traffic.

“People missed flights, people missed funerals, students were delayed for their mock exam,” said the judge. “A child with special needs on his way to school missed part of the school day and [missed] 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.”

Tony Bambury, a motorist, said at the time that the disruption caused him to miss his father’s funeral after he was caught up in queues of traffic on his journey from Aylesbury to Essex.

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”.

The sentences exceeded those handed out in 2023 to two other Just Stop Oil activists who were jailed for climbing the Queen Elizabeth II bridge on the Dartford Crossing.

In a defiant statement released after he was jailed, Hallam insisted his only crime had been: “Giving a talk on civil disobedience as an effective, evidence-based method for stopping the elite from putting enough carbon in the atmosphere to send us to extinction.”

He had previously said he had suffered the “indignity of the British courtroom”, accusing the judge during his trial of dismissing his fears over the climate.

“The judge stated that ‘whether or not we are facing the end of the world is neither here nor there’ and that humanity ‘coming to a fiery end’ was irrelevant,” Hallam wrote on his website, adding: “He [the judge] then ordered me to be forcibly dragged out of the court by the police and remanded to prison. This is the indignity of a British courtroom.”

During the trial the judge had repeatedly tried to stop Hallam 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.

Eleven people were arrested for contempt on July 2 for allegedly attempting to influence jurors trying the case.

They were holding placards outside court saying: “Juries deserve to hear the whole truth” and “Juries have the absolute right to acquit a defendant on their conscience”.

Speaking outside Southwark Crown Court where the five activists were sentenced on Thursday, Mr Vince described the judge’s ruling as “harsh” and “undemocratic”.

Addressing the new Labour Government, he said: “I do hope they intervene because it is an injustice to give four or five years to people who simply protest.”

Mr Packham, the TV naturalist, called for a meeting with the new Attorney General Richard Hermer “as rapidly as possible so that I and others can address this grotesque miscarriage of justice”.

Chef Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall said the protesters had been “really viciously sentenced under some extraordinary, wicked, malicious legislation”, and the laws had been put in place to “protect a version of business-as-usual”.

A senior Labour source said the Government had no powers to intervene in the case and no plans to change the tougher sentencing laws brought in by the Conservatives.

The sentencing was condemned by Michael Forst, the United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who said it was a “dark day”.

“Today marks a dark day for peaceful environmental protest, the protection of environmental defenders and indeed anyone concerned with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms in the United Kingdom,” he said.

Priti Patel, the former home secretary who introduced tougher laws against protesters, welcomed the “long overdue” sentences.

“With the Labour Government now letting thousands of criminals out of prison early they cannot be trusted to protect the public and Britain’s hard-working, law-abiding majority,” she said.

Suella Braverman, who was home secretary at the time of the disruption, said: “Whilst the right to protest is fundamental in a democracy, we must be aware that harm and disruption caused to others is unlawful.”

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.”

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.