Just Stop Oil protesters conspired to break into Manchester Airport and glue themselves to taxiways, court hears
Five protesters planned to break into Manchester Airport and glue themselves to the taxiways, prosecutors allege.
Daniel Knorr, 22, Leonorah Ward, 22, Indigo Rumbelow, 30, Margaret Reid, 54, and Noah Crane, 19, all deny conspiring to intentionally cause a public nuisance at the airport on August 5 last year.
Four of the group were stopped last year as they were allegedly making their way to the airport from Gatley in the early hours of the morning. They were searched and found with angle grinders, bolt cutters, superglue, sand and banners with slogans including reading: ‘Oil kills’, Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
Mr Crane, who was not with the group, is alleged to have bought four phones which were to be used to ‘live stream’ the incident, prosecutors allege.
The court heard that, if successful, the group would have caused hours of disruption to arriving and departing flights as well as significant costs.
Prosecutor Henry Blackshaw said that each of the defendants are part of 'protest group', Just Stop Oil.
He said the group often ‘engaged in behaviour which is intended to be disruptive as a method of drawing publicity to their cause’, which is the ‘reduction in the extraction and use of oil’, arising out of concerns for the role that has in climate change.
Whilst ‘peaceful protests are an important right of a democracy’ the intended actions of the group was ‘not a lawful, legitimate protest’, the prosecutor alleged.
The court heard that on August 3, Mr Crane bought four second-hand smartphones in Birmingham, spending £654. These were later recovered from the other members of the group in Manchester, it was said.
Each of them had working SIM cards which had been activated immediately after they were bought, and