Morgan Trowland sits atop the Queen Elizabeth II bridge in the United Kingdom. Photo / Just Stop Oil
Morgan Trowland sits atop the Queen Elizabeth II bridge in the United Kingdom. Photo / Just Stop Oil
A Kiwi activist has to be “punished”, a UK judge says, for disrupting traffic during a climate protest when he scaled a busy motorway bridge near London.
Morgan Trowland, a 40-year-old civil engineer from Ashburton, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment - one of heaviest punishments handed out to an environmental protester in years, The Telegraph reported earlier this month.
It also comes as New Zealand police arrested four protesters who blocked State Highway 1 in Wellington, the latest in a spate of similar roadblocks by the group.
The protesters here, from the Restore Passenger Rail group, were charged with endangering traffic and breaching bail, while Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has also refused to meet with them.
Restore Passenger Rail protesters blocked the intersection of Vivian St and Cuba St on State Highway 1. Photo / Restore Passenger Rail
Speaking on the AM show, Hipkins said whatever point the group was trying to make, “they’re not making it”.
Trowland, meanwhile, was arrested alongside another man after climbing the Queen Elizabeth II bridge over the River Thames at Dartford last year.
Police closed the bridge, part of London’s M25 orbital motorway, for 40 hours.
This month, Judge Shane Collery, of the Southend Crown Court, told Trowland and the other man: “You have to be punished for the chaos you caused and to deter others from copying you.”
The men were part of the Just Stop Oil group’s “month of action” against the UK government continuing with new oil and gas exploration in the face of the climate crisis.
Trowland posted an emotional video from the top of the bridge in which he was “not willing to sit back and watch everything I love burn for the rest of my life”.
Kiwi man Morgan Trowland has been sentenced by a UK court to three years in prison for disrupting traffic when he scaled the Queen Elizabeth II bridge over the Thames. Photo / Google
Judge Collery, The Telegraph reported, said “protest is tolerated”, however, “in no society can there be a blank cheque in terms of what’s permitted”.
“[You] plainly believed you knew better than everyone else. In short, to hell with everyone else,” Judge Collery said.
Trowland was unanimously found guilty of causing a public nuisance.
His family and friends have told Stuff they are shocked by the punishment and described it as “Draconian”.
Trolwand’s New Zealand-based sister, Holly Trowland, said: “I was shocked it was so long considering this was a non-violent protest.”
“I’m very proud of him and support what he did,” she told Stuff. “My brother is much braver than I am.”
A “heavily pregnant woman who needed urgent medical help” was among those who were impacted by the heavy traffic Trowland caused, Essex Police told The Telegraph.
Another person missed their best friend’s funeral, and one business lost more than a quarter of a million New Zealand dollars in earnings.
“By your actions, you caused this very important road to be closed for 40 hours,” Judge Collery said.
Trowland described the UK government as “fraudulent” and said their actions to grant consents for new exploration were accelerating the process of climate change.
“It’s an absolute act of treason, selling all of ourselves and our children into an uninhabitable Earth,” Trowland said. “And I believe it’s my duty to do anything in my power to stop it.”
He ended the video by saying that humanity was “out of time” and called on others to commit acts of civil disobedience.
In a media release issued by Just Stop Oil, Trowland revealed more about his motivations: “Our government has enacted suicidal laws to accelerate oil production: killing human life and destroying our environment.”
“I can’t challenge this madness in my desk job, designing bridges, so I’m taking direct action, occupying the QE2 bridge until the government stops all new oil.”
Essex Police Chief Constable BJ Harrington told media he thought the pair’s actions were “crazy”.
Trowland is a veteran campaigner in the UK, previously gluing himself to Tower Bridge in 2021 and taking part in a blockade of a newspaper print works the year prior.
In a Facebook post last year, Trowland said the only solution to the climate crisis was to “take over the state”.
“Your children are facing annihilation within a decade or two (who knows exactly when?); people in other parts of the world are facing it now.
“Inexorably, extreme weather and ecological collapse will alternately scorch, flood and plague our crops leading to food shortages, leading to mob violence, murder and rape as your desperate neighbours turn ugly,” he said.
“We are outta time for incremental changes and we need to organise an emergency response an order of magnitude greater than for Covid.”
