Chiara Sarti v R

Where protest conduct engages Articles 10 and 11, the court must ask whether the statutory offence itself strikes a proportionate balance. For the offence of interference with key national infrastructure, the balance is struck by the statutory ingredients. The offence is confined to specified infrastructure and, for delay to roads, requires significant delay caused intentionally or recklessly.

A conviction under section 7 therefore requires no individual assessment of whether it proportionately interferes with Convention rights. The reasonable-excuse defence does not introduce such an assessment, although it remains available to a properly notified procession complying with applicable police conditions.

The three appellants took part in a Just Stop Oil slow march on A roads in west London. The procession occupied the carriageway, caused traffic disruption and continued despite police warnings. They were convicted at Southwark Crown Court of interfering with key national infrastructure contrary to section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023.

The trial judge held that proportionality under Articles 10 and 11 was for the judge, that the ingredients of section 7 made a conviction Convention-compatible, and that reasonable excuse did not arise. The appellants challenged those conclusions. The central issue was whether proof of the section 7 offence itself ensures that a conviction is a proportionate interference with rights of expression and peaceful assembly.

1. Appeals dismissed. The appellants’ conduct was capable of engaging Articles 10 and 11, but the ingredients of section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 themselves strike the required proportionality balance. Once those ingredients are proved, a conviction is proportionate. Ground 2 therefore did not arise.
2. The court applied the structured approach set out in In re Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Northern Ireland) Bill [2022] UKSC 32. It asks: whether Convention rights are engaged; whether the offence’s ingredients themselves strike the balance; and, only if they do not, whether a means exists to ensure proportionality. The first question was answered affirmatively: section 7 can be committed by peaceful protesters whose conduct remains within the protection of Articles 10 and 11.
3. On its proper construction, section 7 is a measured restriction on the location and manner of protest. It concerns infrastructure which Parliament was entitled to regard as essential to national life. In road cases, sections 7(4) and 7(5) must be read together. Prevention of use is covered by section 7(4), while protest conduct causing delay is criminal only if the delay is significant. The offence is also limited to special roads and A and B roads, and requires intention or recklessness as to interference.
4. Those restrictions protect the rights and freedoms of other road users while leaving substantial lawful means of protest available, including on most highways, on public land not forming a highway, and at the roadside. Parliament was entitled, within its relatively broad margin of appreciation for location- and manner-based restrictions, to identify the relevant roads by a clear classification system. It did not exceed that margin by including all A and B roads and special roads.
5. Section 7(2)(a) is broad enough to permit a proportionality assessment if the Convention requires one, but it does not require one here. A notified public procession which complies with conditions imposed under sections 11 and 12 of the Public Order Act 1986 would, however, have a reasonable excuse under section 7(2).
6. Director of Public Prosecutions v Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23 remained binding as to the construction of section 137 of the Highways Act 1980. Its analysis could not simply be transferred to section 7, which is materially narrower in the roads it regulates and the disruption it criminalises.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Leave was granted and the appeals against conviction were dismissed: [2025] EWCA Crim 61.
• Crown Court at Southwark: Following a jury trial before HHJ Hehir, the appellants were convicted of interfering with key national infrastructure contrary to section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023. The judge ruled that proportionality was for the judge and that reasonable excuse did not arise.