When seven Just Stop Oil protesters were convicted of trespassing, the judge in the case had some warm words for those found guilty.

District Judge Graham Wilkinson at Wolverhampton Magistrates’ Court praised the activists’ ‘admirable aims’ after they disrupted operations at an Esso fuel terminal in Birmingham last April. Wilkinson told the group during the end of the trial last week that he was moved by their ‘deeply emotive’ explanations.