Just Stop Oil protesters from Greater Manchester spared jail after 'reckless' British Grand Prix track invasion

Two Just Stop Oil climate change protesters from Greater Manchester have been spared jail after invading the track at last year’s British Grand Prix. Louis McKechnie and Joshua Smith were among five campaigners who were dragged off the circuit at Silverstone as two Formula One cars passed close by.

McKechnie, of Manchester, and fellow activists Emily Brocklebank and Bethany Mogie, were given suspended jail sentences at Northampton Crown Court on Friday. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Garnham also handed 12-month community orders to Joshua Smith, of Lees in Oldham, David Baldwin and Alasdair Gibson.

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Gibson and McKechnie, both 22; Mogie, 40; Baldwin, 47; Brocklebank, 24; and 30-year-old Smith all claimed the protest, which started after a red flag was signalled to halt the race, had followed a “meticulous” safety plan.

But they were found guilty of causing what the Crown said was “an immediate risk of serious harm” by sitting “in the face” of fast-moving vehicles. Brocklebank, of Yeadon, Leeds; Gibson, from Aberdeen; Mogie, from St Albans; McKechnie and Smith went on to the race circuit during the protest.

Baldwin, of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, was found in a car park along with glue, cable ties and a Just Stop Oil banner and was said by the Crown to have been “in it together” with his co-defendants. McKechnie and Brocklebank – who have a joint previous conviction for gluing themselves to the frame of a £70 million Van Gogh painting days before the F1 protest – were given suspended prison sentences of 12 months and six months respectively, both suspended for two years.

Mogie, a mother of