A SECOND climate protester has been jailed, and then bailed, in Newcastle court.
Sydney man Samuel Gribben, 21, was charged by police on June 27 after entering the rail corridor and blocking trains near the Iron Bark Creek Bridge at Hexham at about 3.15am.
Gribben was handed a one-month prison term in Newcastle Local Court on July 11 after pleading guilty to the charge of causing obstruction to a railway locomotive or rolling stock.
He fronted court again on July 12, where he successfully applied for bail while an appeal against the severity of his sentence is pending.
As part of his conditions, he must not engage in any unlawful protest, must not enter any industrial corridor or interfere with industrial rolling stock or railway locomotives, and not come within 100 kilometres of Newcastle.
Gribben's matter was adjourned to July 18.
During his court appearance on Thursday, he was fined $1100 for the offence of entering inclosed non-agricultural lands - serious safety risk.
Another protester, 21-year-old Tasmanian woman Laura Davey, was handed a three-month jail term earlier this month but was released on bail pending an appeal.
A spokesperson for Blockade Australia, the organisation behind ongoing protest activity in the Newcastle and Hunter areas, slammed the sentences as a "heinous overreach for peaceful protest".
Blockade Australia climate activists have been disrupting services on the Hunter railway line daily since June 25.
Dozens of people have been arrested; many have been fined between $750 and $1300 and escaped criminal convictions.
A spokesperson for the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) said the illegal protests were increasingly dangerous and put the lives of the activists, emergency services and rail workers at risk.
A specialist squad of police, Strike Force Tuohy, was stood up to investigate the ongoing activity.
No new protesters had been arrested, or charges laid, by 12.30pm on July 12.
