Man blasts Just Stop Oil after protest caused him to miss FUNERAL

2022-11-09

‘I’ll never forgive what they have done’: Grieving son tells how he missed his own father’s FUNERAL because of Just Stop Oil M25 stunt after traffic gridlock forced him to turn around and go home

Tony Bambury has revealed he was forced to miss his father’s funeral because of a Just Stop Oil protest
Monday’s M25 stunt caused massive disruption to his family’s journey from Aylesbury to Pitsea
He described telling his mother he would be missing the funeral and said he will ‘never forgive’ the zealots

A man has blasted Just Stop Oil zealots whose stunt on Britain’s busiest motorway this week caused him to miss his father’s funeral.

Tony Bambury was travelling with his family to the funeral just off the A13 near Pitsea from his home in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire on Monday when he discovered that the eco-mob had blocked parts of the M25 in protest – hugely disrupting his journey.

He was forced to divert off the motorway towards St Albans to find an alternative route to Essex, but got caught up in long queues of traffic.

Describing the heartrending moment he had to call his grief-stricken mother that he would not be able to get to the funeral on time, Mr Bambury told ITV Meridian: ‘I called my Mum, who’s 79, and was very upset as you can imagine. My brother and his family were there, I wanted to be there, and I had a eulogy that I was going to say about my father.

‘These people have forced me not to go to my own father’s funeral by their actions and it’s not like I can get a second chance at this. I’ll never forget what they’ve done and I’ll never forgive what they have done.’

Another man missed the birth of his child this week. He said: ‘My wife gave birth yesterday afternoon, she was alone whilst I was stuck on the M25 desperately trying to reach the hospital. Unforgivable, I totally sympathise with your course but I’m disgusted with what you deem the right way to highlight it’.

‘These people have forced me not to go to my own father’s funeral by their actions and it’s not like I can get a second chance at this,’ Mr Bambury said. Pictured, his late father

Handout photo from Essex Police of a Just Stop Oil protester being detained on Monday

Specially trained police officers using ropes to bring down a Just Stop Oil protester on a gantry on the M25 on Monday

Just Stop Oil sparked rush hour chaos on Monday after an activist scaled the motorway gantry on the M25

Queues tailed back for miles in the middle of the Monday morning rush as police arrived to detain the rebels bringing traffic to a standstill at more than half a dozen separate locations on the ringroad

The eco-group carried out an entire month of action over October and were planning daily action until Christmas

Louise Harris shouted through tears into a camera from the top of a gantry on the M25: ‘I’m here because I don’t have a future.’

The 24-year-old is a prolific activist, having been spared jail earlier this summer for trying to tie herself to goal posts during Tottenham Hotspur’s clash with West Ham in March, while wearing one of the Just Stop Oil group’s trademark orange t-shirts.

Reflecting on the incident recently, the activist – who self-styles as a ‘pop singer-songwriter’ – aligned herself with rebels during the Irish War Of Independence.

In a Facebook post, she declared that ‘we must learn form history’ to stop climate activists being executed like rebels were.

Miss Harris has even said she would go to war ‘to save the human race’ if the time comes.

However, she followed the sentiment by acknowledging ‘war is awful’ and she would rather ‘be part of nonviolent civil resistance instead’.

The demonstrator – who posts songs on YouTube including a slickly edited music video called ‘Dating me is like a Cambridge term’ – supposedly came to the realisation that her climate activism shared parallels with the conflict during a holiday to Ireland this month.

It is estimated that 2,346 people were killed or died as a result of the gruelling War of Independence, which ran between 1919 and 1921.

The Met’s Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist branded the demo ‘criminality’ with the intention of disrupting thousands of people’s lives.

He told journalists on Monday: ‘This isn’t protest, this is criminality where people are taking extremely hazardous steps disrupting the M25.

‘This action is grossly disproportionate to any legitimate aim that this group may have. This is criminality and we’ll treat it as such.’

It comes as Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley joked today that he cannot tackle Just Stop Oil eco-zealots with snipers or ‘take off their limbs’ with angle grinders as Home Secretary Suella Braverman urged police to take a tougher stance on ‘extremist’ protesters after an officer was injured on the M25.

During a Q&A with police chiefs at a London conference, Britain’s top cop defended the response to the environ-extremists who have shut Britain’s busiest motorway for the third day running, declaring: ‘We’re going as quickly as we can.’

But Ms Braverman told the same event in Westminster this afternoon: ‘Scenes of members of the public taking the law into their own hands are a sign of a loss of confidence and I urge you all to step up to your public duties in policing protests’.

She said: ‘Thousands of police days and hours are being diverted away from combating rape and homicide and burglary to dealing with these extremists. Criminal damage, obstructing the highway, public nuisance – none of it should be humoured. It is not a human right to vandalise a work of art. It is not a civil liberty to stop ambulances getting to the sick and injured’.

And Tory MP Peter Bone told MailOnline that the police and justice system are being ‘too soft’ and officers should be ordered to use force to remove protesters – even if eco-warriors end up injured.

Defending the approach, Sir Mark Rowley has revealed that his officers had to use an angle grinder to remove a bicycle D-lock from the neck of a protester who had attached themselves to a gantry this morning. It came amid growing public anger that dozens of Just Stop Oil supporters, including a 75-year-old grandmother, have been able to climb gantries on the M25 with ease with specialist officers required to remove them.

He said: ‘We have gone as fast as we think we can do on the JSO issues. We can’t take snipers apparently to people who are climbing the gantries, when we use the angle grinders we have to apparently just take off the locks, we can’t take off the limbs at the same time. There are limits to how you can do this at speed. We are turning up at those things very quickly. We’re going as quickly as we can.’

He spoke hours after one Just Stop Oil protestor caused a lorry crash and left a police outrider hurt after going on the motorway between Junctions 26 and 27 on Wednesday morning.

On a third day of action on the M25, which appears to be its worst so far, where police failed to stop at least ten protesters causing closures at junction 4, junction 7 and 8, junctions 8 to 9, junctions 13 to 14, junction 22, junction 23 to junction 27 and junction 30 of the M25. Six junctions have now been successfully targeted each day this week, which is acutely embarrassing for the police. People caught up in the traffic missed medical appointments and one man even missed the birth of his child.

On the same stage minutes later, Home Secretary Suella Braverman took a hard line on how police should deal with protesters while speaking at a conference in Westminster.

She told delegates: ‘Although most police officers do an excellent job, sadly, in recent months and years we have seen an erosion of confidence in the police to take action against the radicals, the road-blockers, the vandals, the militants and the extremists.

‘But we have also seen the police appear to lose confidence in themselves – in yourselves, in your authority, in your power – an institutional reluctance. This must change.

‘Such disruption is a threat to our way of life. It does not ‘further a cause’. It is not ‘freedom of expression’ and I want to reassure you that you have my – and this Government’s – full backing in taking a firmer line to safeguard public order. Indeed, that is your duty.

‘Scenes of members of the public taking the law into their own hands are a sign of a loss of confidence and I urge you all to step up to your public duties in policing protests. The law-abiding patriotic majority is on your side. This is what common sense policing means.’

Tory MP Peter Bone suggested that people will already have died as a result of the chaos that being caused. ‘We’re not taking firm enough action. You can imagine that if this was in other countries they would be taking much more robust action,’ he said.

‘They must be very firm with these people and remove them. They are a risk to innocent people. There doesn’t seem to be strong enough action, either by the police in the first place or by the courts when they get there.’

The former minister said the eco-protests were causing ‘terrific anger’ among the public. ‘What they are doing serves no purpose whatsoever’, he said.

Essex police work on removing this Stop the Oil protestor from a gantry on the M25 near Junction 29 in Essex

A police outrider was knocked off his bike and two lorries crashed when a Just Stop Oil protester tried to climb a gantry on the M25

‘I have no sympathy if any of these anarchists get injured when the police remove them because they are putting other people’s lives at risk… it is unjustified, illegal and if they want to change the law campaign democratically to do it.’

He added: ‘I don’t think it is the individual officers, it is the direction they are given. I am sure if they are told to go and clear these people who have glued themselves to the floor, just rip them off, they would do so.’

Mr Bone said that he believe some people had already died as a result of the delays. ‘I am sure some people who were in ambulances that haven’t got through have died, or some people haven’t been able to get to their hospital appointments say for a cancer, go back three weeks later and it’s too late,’ he said.

Essex MP Mark Francois told MailOnline: ‘We want to live in a democracy, not Putin’s Russia but that does not justify a small group of extremist, anti-capitalist ideologues seriously disrupting tens of thousands of people just trying to get to work, hospital appointments or to visit their loved ones.’

The Tory former minister added: ‘This now clearly crosses a line from peaceful protest to anarchy.’ On the protesters he added: ‘These are a very very small minority of people who are disrupting the lives of law-abiding citizens and it is plain wrong.’

One eco-zealot caused chaos between junction 26 and junction 27 in Essex this morning after she was spotted climbing a pole by the road with one witness claiming it was lucky nobody was killed.

Two lorries crashed into each other under a gantry with a police officer knocked off a motorcycle in the chaos. A picture from the scene showed the HGVs crumpled together and the motorcycle on the hard shoulder.

One witness told MailOnline: ‘I was driving along at around 6.21am when a woman started climbing a concrete pole. A police officer on a motorbike swerved to try to stop her and collided with a lorry, which then crashed into another lorry. They arrested the woman before she could get on to the gantry’.

He added: ‘Someone’s going to die soon’, praising the lorry drivers and the police officer’s safety gear for preventing a tragedy today’.

Essex Police chief constable BJ Harrington said it is ‘only a matter of time’ before someone is killed during a Just Stop Oil protest.

He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘We have been telling Just Stop Oil all the time that motorways are dangerous places and people will and do get killed.’

Asked about the incident in which an officer was injured on the M25 on Wednesday morning, he said: ‘It’s devastating. Our officers have been out there doing the best they can to protect the public and keep the roads moving.

‘As a result of their bravery and commitment, one of them gets hurt.’

He went on: ‘I think it is only a matter of time before somebody gets killed. The only way this is going to stop is if Just Stop Oil frankly grow up and realise they are putting people’s lives at risk.’

Scotland Yard said a person has locked themselves on to an overhead gantry near Junctions 24 and 25 – and they need a JCB digger to get them down.

The force said: ‘Locks add more complexity for our removal teams and the overall process becomes longer. We have had to bring in specialist equipment for this removal, including a JCB. Officers will endeavour to work swiftly and safely to open as quickly as possible.’

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has sent her ‘best wishes’ to the police officer who was injured while responding to a Just Stop Oil protest on the M25.

She said: ‘My thoughts and best wishes go to the @essexpoliceUK officer injured while dealing with protesters engaging in guerrilla tactics on the M25 today. These protests are dangerous & I fully back police in using all tools available to prevent further disruption & protect the public.’

‘You don’t watch and you don’t care!’ Moment GMB’s Susanna Reid shuts down Just Stop Oil spokesman with withering put-down as she tells him: ‘You’re not getting people on your side’

Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid launched a withering attack on a Just Stop Oil spokesperson this morning after the group halted traffic on the M25 again by climbing gantries on multiple junctions.

Spokesperson for the group Sam Johnson told the programme: ‘The media always want to talk about the what. We need to talk about the why.’

But Susanna Reid argued: ‘The problem is people are distracted by what you are doing. It’s become the distraction.’

Co-host Ed Balls added: ‘People hate you. [They think] the campaign is not a good way to proceed.’

Susanna asked: ‘Have you watched this programme?’ – to which Mr Johnson told her ‘No’.

It was at this point Susanna began her blistering shut down. She told him: ‘So you don’t have any idea what this programme does.

Susanna Reid told Sam Johnson: ‘You don’t watch, and you don’t care’

Susanna was presenting the programme alongside a former Labour MP Ed Balls

Mr Johnson told Good Morning Britain viewers that the media only likes to talk about what the group is doing, and not why

‘You have no idea who our meteorologist is, Laura Tobin, who’s one of the most outspoken people on climate change, who has written an entire book talking about what we each need to do as individuals on climate change.

‘And you have the audacity to come on here and say we are completely distracted and we’re not talking about the issues?

‘We’re talking about them every single morning, son.

‘You’re not getting people on your side including people who would naturally be sympathetic to your cause.

‘Sorry, I’m going to end it there because you’ve already said you don’t watch and you don’t care.’

Throughout Susanna’s comments, the other presenters in the studio, including Laura Tobin, could be seen nodding in agreement.

But Mr Johnson repeatedly tried to interrupt the presenter, saying: ‘Susanna. Susanna. Susanna.’

Social media users were left divided by the interview, with many praising Susanna’s ‘brilliant’ actions – while others accused the presenter of ‘bullying’.

It came after a morning of traffic chaos in which a Just Stop Oil protestor caused a lorry crash and left a police outrider hurt on the M25 today.

Swathes of Britain’s busiest motorway were shut for the third day running with one eco-extremist locking themselves to a gantry in a new escalation of hostilities.

One eco-zealot caused chaos between junction 26 and junction 27 in Essex after she was spotted climbing a pole by the road with one witness claiming it was lucky nobody was killed.

Two lorries crashed into each other under a gantry with a police officer apparently knocked off a motorcycle in the chaos. A picture from the scene showed the HGVs crumpled together and the motorcycle on the hard shoulder.

He added: ‘Someone’s going to die soon’, praising the lorry drivers and the police officer’s safety gear for preventing a tragedy today.

The incident came on a third day of action on the M25, which appears to be its worst so far, where police failed to stop at least ten protesters causing closures at junction 4, junction 7 and 8, junctions 8 to 9, junctions 13 to 14, junction 22, junction 23 to junction 27 and junction 30 of the M25.

Police are said to be patrolling the motorway in a bid to stop protesters succeeding, but have failed so far with one protester locking themselves to the gantry in an escalation of previous protests.

Scotland Yard said a person locked themselves on to an overhead gantry near Junctions 24 and 25 this morning.

Officers appear to have been outfoxed by activists turning up at 6.30am – 30 minutes earlier than on Monday and yesterday.

Just Stop Oil was joined by activists from Animal Rebellion, a group campaigning for ‘a plant-based food system’, with two of their members turning up at junction 13.

The number of protesters on the road again is deeply embarrassing for the police, who have been urged to get a grip.

The Met said this morning that they were ‘ready to respond to any protest’ in a tweet at 6.56am – sent 26 minutes after the protesters were already in the road.

Following this morning’s events, social media users were torn by Susanna Reid’s takedown of Mr Johnson.

Samuel Johnson, 29, from Suffolk, was arrested in September after Just Stop Oil activists occupied a tunnel under the road leading to an oil refinery for 13 days.

He has been charged and awaits trial.

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