Prosecutor Adam King said the bridge was closed from 4am on October 17 last year to 9pm the following day.
Two Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled a bridge on the Dartford Crossing, causing gridlock when police closed the bridge to traffic, have both been jailed as the judge stressed he wanted others to be deterred from copying them.
Morgan Trowland, 40, and 34-year-old Marcus Decker used ropes and other climbing equipment to scale the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links the M25 in Essex and Kent.
Prosecutor Adam King said the bridge was closed from 4am on October 17 last year to 9pm the following day, with jams as traffic was forced to use the tunnels instead.
Both defendants were found guilty by unanimous verdicts of causing a public nuisance, following an earlier trial at Basildon Crown Court.
Judge Shane Collery KC sentenced Trowland at Southend Crown Court to three years in prison, while Decker was jailed for two years and seven months.
“You have to be punished for the chaos you caused and to deter others from copying you,” he said.
The judge said that Trowland, who has six previous convictions relating to protests, had a “leading role”, while Decker had one previous conviction relating to a protest.
The judge said that the pair “plainly believed you knew better than everyone else”, adding: “In short, to hell with everyone else.”
“By your actions you caused this very important road to be closed for 40 hours,” the judge said, noting that the disruption affected “many tens of thousands, some very significantly”.
