A Hexham woman has spoken of the impact that being arrested for protesting has had on her after she was found guilty of wilfully obstructing a highway.

Kate Bramfitt, 52, was found guilty at Stratford Crown Court last week after she took part in a Just Stop Oil protest that brought traffic to a standstill in central London. 

She was given a conditional discharge for nine months, and ordered to pay a £26 victim surcharge and £200 costs.

Ms Bramfitt said: "I would say, especially because I do consider myself to be a good, honest, law-abiding person, that the position that you're put in is extremely stressful and a lot of people, including myself, we can't afford lawyers.

"We can't afford the expensive lawyers that the oil companies have. We represent ourselves, we're all trying to help each other and learn the law basically so that we can defend ourselves."

She gained national attention last week after she shouted at the Deputy District Judge Patricia Evans "shame on you, judge” when the sentence was handed down.

The stress of the situation combined with feeling that the judge was being callous towards one of the other protesters by suggesting that the bailiffs could come to their property led to her making the remarks.

"I just thought, I've got a migraine here and it's just really, really stressful and you don't have any idea of what normal good people are going through to get climate action," she said.

Ms Bramfitt has been campaigning on climate change for 20 years and had previously engaged in action that involved writing to her MP, petitions, and teaching children about what they can do before taking the step to join Just Stop Oil. 

After attending COP26 with her daughter and learning that there were more than 500 delegates with links to the oil industry in the negotiation, she was left feeling like no progress was going to be made.

"I just felt that unless ordinary people themselves sort of do what what people have done in history before and and take non-violent direct action we're just going to keep being lied to basically and children's future is going to go down the pan."