77-year-old activist may have to go back to prison for having very small wrists

A British activist faces the possibility of being sent back to prison because her wrists are too small to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.

In August, Gaie Delapan activist for , was sentenced to prison along with four co-accused, for her participation in a campaign of protests that disrupted motorway traffic on the M25, in November 2022.

Delap was among the several dozen Just Stop Oil supporters who, during a four-day campaign, blocked gateways on the M25, which surrounds London, forcing police to stop traffic and leaving 709,000 drivers arrested in traffic jams.

A few months after being arrested, the activist, a 77-year-old retired teacher, was released, and was informed that she could serve the rest of your sentence in mandatory curfew at home.

But the company hired to place the electronic ankle bracelet on the activist, who lives in Bristol, couldn’t get her to put her ankledue to a health problem — and there are no devices available that are small enough to adapt to wrists your size.

Now, says , the British court has issued an arrest warrant for Gaie Delap, after the company contacted prison authorities to tell them that the activist “could not be monitored“.

The conditions of the Delap curfew prevent her from speaking directly with the media, so it is his brother, Mick, a journalist by profession, who has spoken on his behalf.

“This is very cruel. Gaie is sitting at home, terrified, with her suitcase packed.waiting for the police to knock on your door. He hasn’t been able to eat or sleep because of it,” says Mick. “She hopes common sense prevails and that I don’t have to go back to prison.”

The journalist says that his sister had various health problems and continued to not feel a finger after being handcuffed for a hospital visit during her time in prison. He couldn’t wear an ankle bracelet because he ran the risk of suffering from deep vein thrombosis.

Of the five people Delap was imprisoned with, four were released earlier and three of them had the electronic ankle bracelet successfully applied.

On Thursday, Delap was informed that an arrest warrant had been issued and that should go back to prison due to the “inability to monitor it”.

“As family and friends, we are aware of system failures identification and this case appears to be a miscarriage of justice. We have been in contact with probation services, who support Gaie. But we believe the matter slipped out of their hands,” says Mick Delap.

“It is clear that Gaie was caught in a triangulation of confusion and justiceinvolving the Electronic Monitoring Services, the prison and the social reintegration service”, adds the brother of the activist from Just Stop Oil, an organization known for the recent .

The UK system for identifying detainees under house arrest is operated by Electronic Monitoring Services, run under a contract with the Ministry of Justice – which claims to be analyze the issue.