A JSO protester on the ground after an incident in Holloway Road

POLICE are investigating an incident at a Just Stop Oil protest after a demonstrator said they had been hit by a car.

Members of the environmental group had been disrupting the traffic with a slow walk along Holloway Road on Tuesday morning.

Officers said the driver of a car had been interviewed after footage of the incident was posted on social media.

A protester is seen walking in front of the car before falling to the ground, grimacing in pain.

A police spokesperson said: “The driver of the car voluntarily attended a north London police station and was interviewed under caution; they were not arrested. Enquiries into the circumstances continue.”

Officers have appealed for anybody with footage of the incident to come forward.

A Just Stop Oil (JSO) supporter, who did not want to be named, said: “Essentially, we were walking along the road, slowly. The cars were building up behind us as they will, due to the traffic jam.
“And this particular car wanted to get past and wasn’t prepared for us to move out of the way.”

The protester was in “some pain” but did not need to attend hospital, they said.

The tactics used by climate protesters have split opinion and the reaction to the online video included scores of trolling messages which celebrated the fact that a protester had been injured.

Responding to the online abuse, the activist said: “I would say that we have tried all the things that people would expect us to do, like standing at the side of the road with a banner or writing to an MP or signing a petition, or all the other things that people do, and nothing has changed.”

They added: “And the climate crisis is spiralling out of control. Which means that there are people all over the world who are losing their lives.

“Because the rains are failing or because there are floods or because the heat is so much and they are having to leave those places where they live because they can no longer grow crops or manage the extreme temperatures.”

They added JSO will “stop their campaign of civil resistance when the government halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK as well as cancelling the permission for the new coal mine already green-lighted in Cumbria”.

As of Wednesday, protesters are now liable to be hit with a six month prison term or a fine for anything deemed “more than a minor disruption”, under new powers drawn up in the Public Order Bill.

Disobedience targeted in the bill includes locking on – when protesters chain themselves together or to something – as well as gluing themselves to something.

It could also include slow walking if police deem drivers to be “hindered, to more than a minor degree”.

The United Nations has said the government is acting like a “rogue state”.
The bill – described as “draconian” by charities including Amnesty International UK and Liberty as well as trade unions – was thrown out by the House of Lords in February after peers called it “totally disproportionate”.

But home secretary Suella Braverman pushed it through this week, saying: “The public shouldn’t have their daily lives ruined by so-called ‘eco-warriors’ causing disruption and wasting millions of pounds of taxpayer money.

“The selfish minority must not be allowed to get away with this. We are giving our police and courts the tools they need to stop this chaos and I back them in making full use of these powers.”