Just Stop Oil protests cost Met Police £7.7m since April

A 13-week long campaign by Just Stop Oil (JSO) has cost the Met Police more than £7.7m, the force has revealed.

The Met said the cost of policing 515 protests carried out by JSO since April has amounted to the equivalent of 23,500 officer shifts.

Over that time more than 270 people were arrested over the demonstrations, which included slow marches and the disruption of high-profile events.

The force called the action "crime", but JSO said it would continue.

During the three months of JSO protests, the Met issued 420 section 12 orders to clear the city's roads.

Met Assistant Commissioner Twist said: "This isn't protest, this is crime, and there is a difference.

"The right to protest is strongly protected, but when you get into deliberately causing serious disruption, that tips over into crime," he told LBC.

As well as marching in main roads, activists have disrupted events including The Open, Wimbledon, the Ashes, the London Pride March and the Chelsea Flower Show.

The cost to the Met is on top of the £7.5m spent by the force policing JSO protest action between October and December last year.

A spokesperson for Just Stop Oil said: "Matt Twist has laid out the consequences of the Policing Act for all to see: legitimate protest is now classed as crime.

"This oil funded regime has us locked on for annihilation and will lock up anyone who dissents. But we will not die quietly. We will continue to resist until the government agrees to end new oil and gas."

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