Pipeline protester who targeted pipeline due to skirt Bishop's Waltham jailed for breaching High Court injunction

An environmental activist has been jailed for 112 days after he ‘flouted’ a High Court injunction aimed at preventing disruption to work on a 65-miles-long aviation fuel pipeline.

Scott Breen dug and occupied a 6-8ft pit and constructed a ‘rickety wooden shed’ next to the M25 at Chertsey in Surrey as part of a protest against the operations of oil company Esso on the Southampton to London Pipeline project.

The 48-year-old, whose is nicknamed ‘Digger’, admitted that breaching the court order.

Breen’s barrister, Annabel Timan, said the activist apologised and would ‘undertake not to engage in any further incursions on the land’.

She said: ‘Mr Breen’s motivation has always been to draw attention to climate change...we are in a climate crisis.’

The pipeline is due to be completed later this year.