QUAKERS have urged the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, to intervene within the case of Gaie Delap, 77, who was sentenced to twenty months for a climate protest on the M25 in November 2022, and released this month to serve the remaining four-and-a-half months of her sentence on home detention.
She was then recalled to HM Prison Peterborough since the Electronic Monitoring Service (EMS), which operates the electronic-tagging service, on contract to the Ministry of Justice, couldn’t fit the suitable size of curfew tag.
The Prisoners Advice Service says that emergency-recall procedures for those on determinate sentences will be used if there’s imminent risk of great harm or of reoffending; “where an individual has breached the conditions of their licence”, or where their behaviour indicates that they present “an increased or unmanageable” risk to the general public.
Referring to fitting the tag, EMS guidance says: “We will take an accurate measurement to be certain the tag suits your ankle accurately. We will not be allowed to suit a tag that’s a distinct size to our measurement.”
Gaie Delap, who’s attached to the Redland Meeting, in Bristol, is amongst dozens of Quakers prosecuted for attempting to draw attention to climate change because the Police, Crime and Sentencing Act was passed in April 2022. She was one among six Just Stop Oil protesters who climbed the gantry over the M25 to protest at further oil exploration within the UK.
Quakers say that the case underscores fears in regards to the effect of increasingly strict protest laws on human rights. A recent study by the University of Bristol concluded that the criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest represented “authoritarian moves that will not be consistent with the ideals of vibrant civil societies in liberal democracies”.
The head of witness and worship for Quakers in Britain, Oliver Robertson, said of Gaie Delap’s situation: “We can be grateful if Prisons Minister James Timpson would intervene to seek out a commonsense solution that keeps this non-violent citizen out of our overcrowded prisons.”
Gaie Delap’s curfew conditions reportedly prevent her speaking on to the media. Her brother, Mick, told The Guardian: “This may be very cruel. Gaie is sitting at home terrified, with a suitcase packed, waiting for a knock on the door from police. She’s been unable to eat or sleep for this reason. She’s hoping against hope that sense can prevail and that she won’t need to return to jail.”
He told the paper that his sister had various health problems, and continued to haven’t any feeling in a single finger after being handcuffed for a hospital visit during her time in prison. She couldn’t wear an ankle tag because she was liable to deep-vein thrombosis. She had been told last week that a warrant for her arrest had been issued, and that she was to be returned to prison owing to an “inability to watch” her.
The same issue with tagging had arisen when she was on bail, when a “doorstep curfew” had been agreed, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., her brother said. That alternative had not been offered this time. “As family and friends, we’re aware of failures within the tagging system, and this case appears to be a miscarriage of justice. We have been in contact with the probation service, who’re supportive of Gaie, but we consider the matter has been taken out of their hands,” he said.
