Just Stop Oil: Yorkshire grandmother says she is prepared to go to prison after being arrested at protest

Retired occupational therapist Julia Mercer, from Todmorden, took part in the demonstration at Kingsbury oil terminal near Tamworth on Wednesday because she is worried for the future of her baby grandchild.

She was one of 51 people arrested during the non-violent blockade who were sent to prison on remand ahead of their court hearings because they had broken a previous injunction which gave police additional powers at the site.

If convicted of breaching the injunction, she could be jailed for a maximum of two years.

Mrs Mercer said: “I’ve had an amazing life with so many privileges. Now it’s payback time.

“I don’t have a choice. I just know that to arrive at life’s end without having given everything I can to this campaign would be a bitter disappointment. The privileges remain. I’m in good health with a pension and a loving family. This is something I can do. I am part of a wonderfully supportive community of civil disobedience which is challenging the lies and evasions of those in power.”

Mrs Mercer lives with her husband and the couple have eight grandchildren aged between 23 and nine months. She is a keen gardener and does voluntary work, including making dramatised videos of Bible stories which are then shown in schools.

She added: “I look at my nine-month-old granddaughter and try to imagine the world as it could very well be when she is my age. I find I cannot do this; it’s simply too painful a future to contemplate for her. I will do anything within my power to change this: it’s the inertia and unholy power of business as usual that creates this future and it’s this that we challenge in the courts and on the streets.”

The Just Stop Oil group opposes the issuing of new North Sea oil and gas drilling licences and the reversal of the manifesto commitment on fracking for gas.

Mrs Mercer and her co-defendants will appear in court on September 23.