Women citizens arrest oil executives

Two citizen's arrests were made around 8am this morning on oil company executives. Chief Executive Officer of independent oil and gas company Harbour Energy, Linda Z Cook, was placed under citizen’s arrest at 7:45am. Shortly after, EnQuest Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Copus was arrested by a group of three women outside the company’s head offices in central London.

The groups of women who made the arrests approached Cook and Copus in the street as they were about to enter their offices and explained they had draft indictments and evidence dossiers detailing evidence of Public Nuisance. The women notified the police and they attended the scene at both citizens' arrests.

The women are accusing each of the two executives of two counts of Public Nuisance. The draft indictment for EnQuest CFO Jonathon Copus cited his involvement in "the extraction and distribution and sale and disposal of in excess of 16,000,000 barrels of oil (equivalent), in full knowledge that and intending or being reckless that the extraction and distribution and consumption of said barrels of oil by those to whom it was distributed and sold and disposed of would release in excess of 8,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent) into the atmosphere, and thereby by virtue of the known outcomes associated with carbon dioxide emissions, did create and cause a risk of serious harm to the public."

The two groups of women notified each of the suspects that the draft indictments and evidence dossiers were with the Citizens Arrest Network’s lawyers and would be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. Security at Harbour Energy were handed draft indictments naming six of the company’s executives—including Executive Vice President Global Services, Philip Whittaker, Group General Counsel, Howard Landes, CFO, Alexander Krane, Executive Vice President Technical Services, Alan Bruce and COO, Nigel Hearne—but refused to deliver them to the named suspects. The police were also notified of the additional draft indictments.

The arrests take place as UK households' gas and energy bills are set to increase again this year, with another £111 expected to be added and many who have struggled to heat their homes this winter. In 2024, Harbour paid £350m in dividends to shareholders and committed to increasing oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, while in 2023 EnQuest made a profit of £1bn and were granted permission to develop the Kraken field which has an estimated 140 million barrels of oil.

Jo Mckie, who carried out the citizen’s arrest on Harbour Energy CEO, Linda Z Cook, said "I expect people who have broken the law to be held accountable for it, as I’m sure most people do. Why should wealthy individuals like Linda Cook who are in charge of companies that are breaking environmental protections all over the world, be allowed to get away with breaking those laws and making enormous profits from it, while the rest of us pay the cost of the climate and environmental impacts, plus paying for their bonuses in our extortionately high energy bills?"

The increase in support for exploration comes despite the known effects of oil and gas exploration releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Climate scientists have long campaigned for a move away from fossil fuel dependency, while the government has committed to no new oil and gas licences, and even ruled a Rosebank oil field project in Scotland as unlawful in February.