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A family doctor who has been jailed for peaceful climate protests has said she will carry on breaking the law.
Dr Sarah Benn, 57, became the first GP to be suspended from the medical register in August by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service for actions relating to climate activism.
But in an interview with the British Medical Journal, the Birmingham-based physician said she would not stop being an activist.
She told the BMJ that as a doctor her mission was to promote health and save lives and that is why it was necessary to raise the alarm over global warming.
Dr Sarah Benn, 57, became the first GP to be suspended from the medical register in August by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service for actions relating to climate activism
Dr Benn was convicted after protesting against the government awarding new licences to drill oil in the North Sea.
She held a placard outside the Kingsbury Oil Terminal in Warwickshire in breach of an injunction awarded to US Oil company Valero, which specifically prohibited protests against the production and use of fossil fuels outside the terminal.
She spent eight days on remand in custody, and after breaching it again in September 2022 she was jailed for 32 days for contempt of court. But Dr Benn said she is ready to go to prison again.
She said: ‘I will certainly be out again, doing stuff that may break the law [and] may end me up in prison again. That’s not the intention, but I can’t just say, “The government’s got this”.
‘As doctors, we’re supposed to protect life and health; we’re supposed to advocate for patients.’
She added: ‘The world is facing an unprecedented crisis due to the danger of climate and ecological collapse, and I believe that my actions are a justified and proportionate effort to raise an alarm about the severity and urgency of the situation.’
Dr Benn’s licence to practice will be reviewed again in September at which she could be struck off.
Dr Benn, of Harborne, Birmingham, told the BMJ: ‘I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel I’ve dishonoured the profession, and I think I could explain myself very well to anybody who thought that I had.’
She added: ‘The world is facing an unprecedented crisis due to the danger of climate and ecological collapse, and I believe that my actions are a justified and proportionate effort to raise an alarm about the severity and urgency of the situation.
‘All the science is absolutely shocking—the planet is on a path to 2°C warming (above pre-industrial levels), if not more.
‘We need to do something really radical and urgent to protect our coral reefs and Arctic sea ice and to stop deadly heat waves, but that’s not happening. The inaction is just shocking.’
Dr Benn has worked for most of her career as a GP in inner city Birmingham. She also worked as a GP trainer and undergraduate tutor.
She worked remotely for NHS 111 during the Covid pandemic, the Worcestershire COVID Management Service, and on-site at her practice.
She continued to work as a GP at Hollyoaks Medical Centre in Birmingham until 2022.
Dr Benn was convicted after protesting against the government awarding new licences to drill oil in the North Sea
Dr Benn retired from clinical work in April 2022 and then relinquished her licence to practise later that year, although she said she was keen to stay on the medical register because being a doctor was a ‘core part of her identity’, she told the BMJ.
The General Medical Council has made clear, however, that the tribunal’s decision was nothing to do with climate change but because Dr Benn broke the law.
A spokesperson said: ‘Our fitness to practise investigations consider cases that are referred to us and where doctors have broken the law, not their motivations for doing so.’
Dr Benn, who is married and a vegan, said she does not fly, buys second hand goods, and was a ‘goody two shoes’ at school. She became a climate activist in April 2019 after meeting protestors from Extinction Rebellion.
Dr Benn said she believes the GMC needs to rethink its rulebook when it comes to cases involving climate change.
‘Times have changed – we are facing an existential threat to humanity,’ she says.
‘I’m not asking to be let off or for the decision to be reversed, but I think the GMC needs to wake up and explore why this has happened. And how they should maybe change things for the next doctor in my position who comes before them.’
