Three UK citizens are preparing to appeal the jail sentences they received for causing a public nuisance after they blocked a road to a fracking site in the northwestern city of Lancashire, their attorney said Friday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2018) Three UK citizens are preparing to appeal the jail sentences they received for causing a public nuisance after they blocked a road to a fracking site in the northwestern city of Lancashire, their attorney said Friday.
Simon Roscoe Blevins and Richard Roberts were given 16-month sentences, while Richard Loizou was given 15 months for stopping traffic last year near the Preston New Road site after they camped for hours on top of trucks belonging to the Cuadrilla energy company.
"We are applying to the court of appeal for expedition of the appeal ... The core submission in this case was made at Preston crown court - that it is wrong to lock up peaceful protesters," Kirsty Brimelow, a senior attorney with a law firm taking on the case pro bono, said, according to The Guardian newspaper.
Blevins, Roberts and Loizou became the first people to be jailed for an anti-fracking protest in the United Kingdom.
The fracking site near the town of Blackwater generated bitter public debate when Cuadrilla first applied in 2014 for a permit to dig for shale gas with the Lancashire county council, which eventually gave its consent. The company said it would start fracking next week but had to halt preparations until a court hearing on October 10.
