| Roger Hallam | |
| Birth Name: | Julian Roger Hallam |
| Occupation: | Environmental activist |
| Known For: | Co-founding Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil |
| Conviction: | Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance |
| Conviction Penalty: | 5 years' imprisonment |
Julian Roger Hallam[1] (born) is an environmental activist and convicted criminal who co-founded Extinction Rebellion,[2] [3] Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain,[4] the cooperative federation organisation Radical Routes,[5] and the political party Burning Pink.[6] In April 2024, Hallam was given a suspended two year sentence for attempting to block Heathrow Airport with drones. In July 2024, Hallam was convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for organising protests to block the M25 motorway two years prior, for which he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.
Hallam was raised by a Methodist family.[7]
In 1987, he lived on South Road in Hockley, working as a voluntary worker. He appeared at Bow Street magistrates for daubing anti-nuclear peace messages on the Ministry of Defence building on Ash Wednesday in 1987.[8] In 1988, he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court for daubing feminist messages on car advert display boards saying 'This oppresses women' in July 1987 on an Austin Maestro advert in Hockley Circus.[9]
In 1990, he was part of a cooperative that opened a vegetarian cafe in Saltley.[10] From May 1993, he was part an organic food cooperative on South Road in Hockley, after living in West Virginia.[11] He lived in a communal-type house, with around six people, with division of labour.[12]
He was previously an organic farmer on a 10acres smallholding near Llandeilo in South Wales; he attributes the destruction of his business to a series of extreme weather events.[13] [14]
Between at least 2017 and early 2019, he was studying for a PhD at King's College London,[15] researching how to achieve social change through civil disobedience and radical movements.[16]
Later in 2017, Hallam was a leading member of activist group Stop Killing Londoners,[17] an anti-pollution campaign[18] of mass civil disobedience that they hoped would result in the arrest and imprisonment of activists.[19] Hallam with Stuart Basden, Ian Bray and Genny Scherer were prosecuted and some pledged to go on hunger strike if imprisoned.[20]
Hallam is a co-founder of environmental pressure group Extinction Rebellion, with Gail Bradbrook and Simon Bramwell.[2] [16] [21] [22] He stood unsuccessfully in the 2019 European Parliament election in the London constituency as an independent, winning 924 of the 2,241,681 votes cast (0.04%).[23]
In September 2023, Hallam was ranked thirty-fourth on the New Statesman's Left Power List of influential left-wing figures in the UK.[24]
In an interview with Die Zeit on 20 November 2019, Hallam said that genocides are "like a regular event" in history and he also called the Holocaust "just another fuckery in human history".[25] [26] He made this comment in the context of a broader discussion about genocides which have been committed throughout human history, in which Hallam compared the Nazi Holocaust to the atrocities in the Congo Free State in the late 19th century; as he stated, the "fact of the matter is, millions of people have been killed in vicious circumstances on a regular basis throughout history" and he also stated that the Belgians "went to the Congo in the late 19th century and decimated it."[27] Hallam's controversial comparison drew support from African activists the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign, who were critical of the tone of his language, but lauded him for his honesty and his willingness to highlight the crimes which colonial powers committed in Africa.[28] However, his comments about the Holocaust, perceived by some as anti-Semitic, resulted in his expulsion from Extinction Rebellion in 2020.
In a self-published pamphlet which he wrote in prison in 2019, Hallam wrote that the climate crisis would lead to mass rape, and he featured a story in which the reader's female family members are gang raped and the reader is forced to watch. The pamphlet was condemned by Farah Nazeer, CEO of Women's Aid.[29] When Der Spiegel replied to Hallam that "You can't blame the climate change for the rape of women during war", Hallam's response was "No, climate change is just the tubes that the gas comes down in the gas chamber. It's just a mechanism through which one generation kills the next generation".[30]
In January 2017, in an action to urge King's College London to divest from fossil fuels, Hallam and another person, David Durant, using water-soluble chalk-based spray paint,[14] painted "Divest from oil and gas", "Now!" and "Out of time" on the university's Strand campus entrance.[15] and were fined .[31] In February they again spray painted the university's Great Hall causing a claimed worth of damage and were arrested.[32]
In May 2019, after a three-day trial at Southwark Crown Court for criminal damage, they were cleared by a jury of all charges, having argued in their defence that their actions were a proportionate response to the climate crisis, with Hallam arguing his actions were lawful under an exemption in the Criminal Damage Act that permits damage if it protects another's property.[15] [33] In March 2017, Hallam went on hunger strike to demand the university divest from fossil fuels—the institution had millions of pounds invested in fossil fuels but no investment in renewable energy.[31] Five weeks after the first protest, the university removed worth of investments from fossil fuel companies and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2025.[14] [34]
Hallam and four other activists were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance on 12 September 2019, the day before a planned action to pilot drones in the exclusion zone around Heathrow Airport in order to disrupt flights.[35] Three days later, in an action organised by Heathrow Pause, Hallam was arrested in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport apparently in breach of bail conditions from the previous arrest requiring him to not to be within 50NaN0 of any airport or possess drone equipment.[36] He was remanded in custody until 14 October.[37]
On 5 April 2024, Hallam was given a 2 year prison sentence suspended for 18 months for plotting to close Heathrow airport using drones as a way of showing opposition to the opening of a third runway at the airport. Hallam and his co-defendants had claimed that the act was "merely a publicity exercise". However, this defence was rejected by the jury.[38]
See main article: Just Stop Oil M25 blockade case. On 11July 2024, Hallam and four codefendants were found guilty of conspiring to block traffic on the M25 motorway, London's main orbital motorway. Hallam had been arrested in a dawnraid at his home on 18October 2023.[39] Hallam's plan that was carried out resulting in multiple days of disruption on the motorway.[40] The jury trial took place in London and was marked by repeated outbursts from the defendants after a ruling from Judge Christopher Hehir prohibiting them from using climate breakdown as a defence for their actions.[41] At one point, Hallam refused to leave the witness box and was duly arrested for contempt and sent to the cells. Infact, police were called to court on seven occasions and made several arrests. The trial judge indicated that Hallam and his codefendants will face multiyear prison sentences.
The jury found Roger Hallam and his co-conspirators guilty of causing a public nuisance by unanimous verdict. On 18 July, at Southwark Crown Court, Hallam was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while the other four defendants each received four-year jail terms.[42] [43]
UNRapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst, spent time at the trial and was critical of the proceedings.[43] Prominent figures including TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham, TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, entrepreneur Dale Vince, Green Party peer Jenny Jones and Labour Party Norwich South MP Clive Lewis spoke out against the sentencing.[44] In contrast, Andrew Tettenborn, a professor of law at Swansea University, spoke out in favour of Hallam's sentencing.[45]
The government refused to comment on the sentencing, with a spokeswoman for the prime minister stating that "the judgments and sentencing is for independent judges to make". Similarly a spokesperson for the attorney general's office stated that "Decisions to prosecute, convict and sentence are, rightly, made independently of government by the Crown Prosecution Service, juries and judges respectively. The attorney general has no power to intervene."[46]