In a two-day hearing last month, the activists, who were jailed for taking part in various disruptive protests in 2022, argued that their trial judges had erred by failing to offer the usual leniency afforded to acts of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds.
In a written judgment handed down after announcing the outcome, Lady Justice Carr, the lady chief justice, said the judge who originally jailed Hallam “was entirely justified in taking [a] serious view of [his] offending”.
Hallam was originally jailed for five years for conspiring to disrupt traffic by having protesters climb on to gantries over the M25 for four successive days in 2022. His sentence was reduced to four years.
Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin originally received four-year jail terms for their involvement in the same protest. Shaw’s and Lancaster’s sentences were reduced to three years, while Whittaker De Abreu’s and Gethin’s sentences were reduced to 30 months.
Gaie Delap, previously jailed for 20 months for her role in the protests on the M25, had her sentence reduced to 18 months.