Dartford Crossing protester, possible deportation

[WildAlphabet]

Essex radio did an interview with the partner of a protester who climbed the dartford bridge as part of Just Stop Oil.

The gist of it is he was surprised to get three years in prison, they expected a few months. The length of his sentence means he’s facing deportation, as a German national.

They did a phone in, and I was quite surprised that even the angry radio essex listeners they put on, who were massively against his actions, disagreed with deportation as additional punishment. Some wanted community service to make up for the loss they suffered, others name called, but they thought splitting a family was too much.

I was kind of intrigued how the mumsnet demographic would view it, often being quite rule-bound or conservative. Personally I disagree with the one year rule for deportation, particularly for non violent crimes. It’s out of sync with most of the world. I guess also as a second generation immigrant who could also potentially lose the right to stay here if wrongly convicted, it’s scary on a personal level. It’s played on my mind the last few days

Here’s an article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66756841.amp

Wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t shut down Dartford Crossing.

“One woman was stranded on the M20, which led to another woman stopping her car to help her – both were then tragically involved in an accident while waiting on the hard should four hours after the protest had started.
Mark Heap, the man trying to help the stranded women, was a passing van driver who has sustained broken bones in his back and a fractured leg in his attempt.
Speaking in an interview from hospital, the 54-year-old said: “[The protestors] may not have intended to hurt anyone but they’ve got blood on their hands now.”

Its so obvious you didn’t click on the link I posted to read the full story on how these two women tragically lost their lives because of this protester and his partner’s actions.

I have had to cut and paste from the article and post excerpts because you seem to want to deny their actions had anything to do with the deaths they caused.

Who is this man to you? How can you defend protest tactics that have directly caused people to die horribly and suddenly?

You do realise someone hanging in hammock or dropping something from a big height can be dangerous.
It's a bit worrying you don't understand this.

I don't understand how people can defend what he did as a protest.

The article doesn't say the woman was stranded because of the traffic hold up, it says she was stranded. It hangs on whether the ambulance arrived quickly enough, which the article only defines as may have been impacted by the queues - I seem to recall our health services were/are in crisis and ambulances weren't getting to anyone too quickly - so yes I did read but the opinions of this man, which I entirely sympathise with, do not dictate the law.

Of course I understand how his actions are potentially dangerous, so are many activities. If this man is in prison for the appalling accident these poor women suffered, fine. That's not my understanding but happy to be corrected.

It's not about defending one individual prat protester, who's actions I entirely disagree with btw.

Ignoring the individual person in this and if people like him or not, two things that stuck me

• ambulances are in crisis, people are dying due to the shortage- no one is being held to account otherwise apart from him.
• In our law to be held accountable using there has to be direct causation and or intent to harm. If I for example went hill walking in poor shoes and fell I wouldn’t be prosecuted if a rescuer was harmed reaching me or if someone tripped over my scattered belongings and died. It would be morally wrong I endangered people with my poor choice but it wouldn’t be criminal in the eyes of the law. That’s the norm

Exactly. And my point earlier in addition to this is that the emergency services do have a responsibility to prepare and plan for emergency road closures and to have backup systems that are fit for the purpose in place. That they failed to do this is not the protestors' fault.

If we were to apportion blame for wider and indirect but predictable if conducting a comprehensive risk assessment, this is probably to a large degree the fault of people who voted for a government whose remit they knew was to cut public services, if, I repeat, we want to play blaming people for indirect results of their actions they could have predicted.

Obviously also, if we're looking at potential, predictable, long-term, indirect risks, the fault with the political and financial power to have begun to produce and use alternative, renewable energy sources a very long time ago.

In addition to what you said, for long term planning it’s a bit insane having one crossing point between the sea and central London. If you said that to the average primary school child they’d quickly ask ‘but what happens if that bridge is closed, or breaks or we have high winds for a few days’? It’s a rather special case for saying we should have a contingency plan (as well as another crossing point)

Yes it does.
”One woman was stranded on the M20, which led to another woman stopping her car to help her – both were then tragically involved in an accident while waiting on the hard should four hours after the protest had started.”

”A former Detective Chief Inspector, Mick Neville, went further in his interview with The Sun, stating: “Had their irresponsible demo not taken place, the women and van driver would probably not have been there.”
The drivers flooding the M20 were doing so to avoid the appalling traffic caused by the two Dartford Bridge protestors, who were hanging off the bridge, leading to a two-day closure.”

Im going to repeat what the Detective Chief Inspector concluded which chimes with the eyewitness account from Mark Heap- the man present who was injured along with the women who were killed.
Had their irresponsible demo not taken place, the women and van driver probably would not have been there

They wouldn’t have even been on the road to be stranded for four hours on the shoulder and then killed because the traffic jam caused by the protesters created the entire situation.

I have seen no evidence that the emergency services did not
”prepare and plan for emergency road closures and to have backup systems that are fit for the purpose in place”

I rather think this is not unlike say blaming the fire services for not “planning for emergencies” after arsonists fire bomb an Amazon warehouse instead of the arsonists themselves.

You do know that JSO did not submit any of the required notices of a protest prior to climbing the Dartford bridge? They just showed up and did it.

"Probably not have been there"

Probably means it is more likely they would not have been there than they would have been there.

Thats a lot more certain than potentially.