An environmental activist whose hoax Australian Stock Exchange email temporarily wiped $314m off the value of Whitehaven Coal will be sentenced at the supreme court in Sydney on Friday morning.

In January last year, Jonathan Moylan issued a press release on ANZ letterhead saying the bank had withdrawn its $1.2bn loan facility from Whitehaven’s Maules Creek coal project in NSW on environmental and ethical grounds.



Whitehaven’s share price temporarily fell from $3.52 to $3.21, but quickly recovered, with the biggest shareholder being disgraced former mining magnate Nathan Tinkler.



Moylan, 26, pleaded guilty in May to charges of disseminating false information to the market and faces a possible fine of $495,000 or 10 years in jail.



Jonathan Moylan: Australian Greens senator Lee Rhiannon attended the court ahead of sentencing. Photograph: Paul Miller/AAPImage Photograph: PAUL MILLER/AAPIMAGE

Moylan's mother, Marion, and twin sister, Melanie, will attend the court to support him.



Since Moylan was charged last July a strong support campaign has emerged. The ‘We Stand with Jonathan Moylan’ Facebook page has almost 6,000 members. Before his case was heard on Friday morning about 100 supporters gathered outside.



Australian Greens senator Lee Rhiannon attended the court ahead of sentencing and said Moylan’s actions had helped draw attention to the controversial Whitehaven coalmine and ANZ’s ongoing finance of destructive coal projects.



“Jonathan is a principled young man,” she said. “He does not deserve to go to jail or face a heavy fine. His courageous actions have been of great significance to the growing movement for climate action and helped the campaign against coalmining.”



Maules Creek farmer Rick Laird fought back tears outside the court. He spoke to Moylan on Thursday night and said the activist just wanted to know his fate. He said there was a chance sentencing would be suspended for six weeks.



"I suppose it's hard to support the actions of what he did, but I support his reasons for doing it," he said. "He did it for us in the community, to draw attention to the environmental impacts of the mine and the impact on people in the community."



"The community is divided over the mine – many are against it but there are those who work for the mine or who benefit from it, like the local chamber of commerce, who have sold out to the mine."



Simultaneous support rallies are taking place in Brisbane at King George square and in Tasmania at Parliament Lawns.



But Moylan had powerful people against him too. At the time he was charged, former Commonwealth Bank chief David Murray said the hoax “is no different from robbing someone’s house”.



And Whitehaven chairman, Mark Vaile, said Moylan was “un-Australian,” and that many small investors had lost significant amounts of money during the period of the hoax.



It was reported by Fairfax that shareholders lost no more than $450,360 between them.

