A grieving man vowed to ‘never, ever forgive’ Just Stop Oil protestors after they made him miss his dad’s funeral.
Tony Bambury and his son were driving down the M25 to say one final goodbye to his dad, with both due to be pallbearers at the service.
They were travelling from Aylesbury, to the funeral in Pitsea, Essex, but due to Just Stop Oil protests they never made it.
Instead, Tony had to ring up his already grieving mother on November 7 to tell her he wouldn’t be able to make it.
Desperate to try and make it, Tony raced down back roads, off the motorway but they were rammed with other cars doing the same.
In the early hours of that morning, the climate activists had clambered up into the overhead gantries above the M25 as apart of three days of protests at the motorway.
Speaking to BBC Essex, he said: “I will never, ever forgive these people for what they have done to me.”
He continued: “I was actually due to be a pallbearer on my father’s coffin along with my son and we both got that taken away from us.
“There was a sense of how dare they, how dare they have the lack of forethought. To say ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, we’re going to block these roads and be damned everybody else’.
“By doing this, the civil disruption you don’t raise people to your cause, you actually alienate yourselves on this.
“There’s nothing we could have done but someone that I don’t know has taken that ability for me to say farewell to my father away from me and I actually said a few choice words, as I mentioned, on their Twitter page.
“Nothing’s come back saying ‘we’re so terribly sorry for what happened’, and if they did I would tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine because frankly there’s nothing these people can say to make it any better in my eyes.”
Speaking to ITV, he added: "It's not like I get a second chance at this. My father has been cremated and the service is over. I never got the chance to say goodbye to my father, I never could touch his coffin, I couldn't carry him in."
Also speaking on the channel, a representative from the protest group said: "I read Tony's story and it is awful. It's terrible this happened. I wish it didn't happen but we don't have a choice at the moment. We feel like this action has to be taken to bring the government to account. We are facing a climate hell."
In the immediate aftermath of missing his dad’s funeral, Tony tweeted the protest group and said: “My dad's funeral was today. I missed it owing to your protest. I am all for legal protest, but look at your parents or relatives tonight and think how you would feel about not being able to go to their funeral.”
Recent days have seen the protest group repeatedly disrupt the major road, but this morning they announced they were bringing their campaign of ‘civil resistance’ to an end.
On their Twitter, the group said: “From today, Just Stop Oil will halt its campaign of civil resistance on the M25.
“We are giving time to those in Government who are in touch with reality to consider their responsibilities to this country at this time.”
Tony was far from the only person affected by the protests and another man told the Daily Mail about how he missed the birth of his child due to them as well.
He told the outlet: “My wife gave birth yesterday afternoon, she was alone whilst I was stuck on the M25 desperately trying to reach the hospital.
“Unforgivable, I totally sympathise with your cause but I’m disgusted with what you deem the right way to highlight it’.
