A doctor from the West Country has been jailed for damaging petrol pumps at a motorway service station to draw attention to the issue of climate change. Dr Patrick Hart cracked the display panels of 16 pumps on the M25 using a hammer and chisel as part of a Just Stop Oil protest. He said he feared prison but has no regrets, describing his crime as “an act of care”.
The 38-year-old GP, from Bristol, carried out the action at the Esso petrol station at Thurrock, in Essex, in August 2022. He then waited to be arrested before pleading not guilty.
As reported by Bristol Live, he was jailed for 12 months on Tuesday, January 7. Dr Hart, who works with the Bridge View Medical group in South Bristol, now faces being struck off or suspended by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) as a result of his actions.
However, he argues that he disrupted drivers, who couldn’t fill up at the motorway services for a few hours afterwards, “as an act of care”. The stunt was part of a protest by Just Stop Oil activists against Esso, whose parent company Exxon has been found to have concealed the findings of its own climate scientists in the early days of research into global warming.
Dr Hart also invaded the pitch during the Premiership Rugby Final at Twickenham in May 2023 but was found not guilty of causing criminal damage to the pitch. He threw orange-coloured cornflour around, as part of a wave of Just Stop Oil protests at major sporting events at the time.
Dr Patrick Hart, a South Bristol GP, was arrested for criminal damage to an Esso petrol station on the M25 in August 2022. He has now been jailed for 12 months for the damage. He is part of a ‘Doctors for XR’ branch of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil
(Image: Just Stop Oil)
During his trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in October last year, Dr Hart pleaded “not guilty” to damaging the pumps at the M25 service station. However, he acknowledged he carried out the act, telling the court it would have been “dishonest” to plead guilty.
He said: “I do not feel guilty for what I did. I believed then, and I believe now that it was the right thing to do. It was the carefully considered action of a responsible citizen. My only defence, however, is a moral one, not a legal one. I did what I did as an act of conscience.”
While his defence could not use a moral case to back up his plea, the judge did allow Dr Hart the chance to address the jury about why he carried out the action, during the trial in October 2024. “I disrupted people as an act of care,” he told the court in Chelmsford.
Dr Patrick Hart, a South Bristol GP, outside Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex. Dr Hart was arrested for criminal damage to an Esso petrol station on the M25 in August 2022. He has now been jailed for 12 months for the damage. He is part of a ‘Doctors for XR’ branch of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil
(Image: Just Stop Oil)
“I damaged the petrol pump screens as an act of care. Because in times of great peril, a caring person has to stand up for what is right. My actions have already cost me greatly. I have been penalised at work and stand to be suspended or lose my licence to practise as a doctor. But I regret nothing.
“Because to not do it, would have been to give up on caring, and that would be worse. In the face of the permanent collapse of our climate, our economy, our society and life on Earth, the only thing that keeps me going is our continued capacity to as people to care, regardless of what happens. Yes, I fear prison, but I am ready to go if I must,” he added.
Dr Hart now faces a tribunal to decide on his status as a GP, after the General Medical Council began disciplinary proceedings against him.