A Just Stop Oil campaigner from Brighton has been told that she will face trial by jury in September next year over a protest stunt at Stansted airport.
Cole Macdonald, of Baker Street, Brighton, and fellow protester Jennifer Kowalski, 28, of Dumbarton, in Scotland, pleaded not guilty to causing criminal damage and interfering with national infrastructure.
The two Just Stop Oil activists were charged after two private jets were sprayed with orange paint in a protest at Stansted almost two months ago.
The group said at the time of the incident, on Thursday 20 June, that activists had entered the airfield and used fire extinguishers filled with orange paint.
Macdonald and Kowalski both denied the charges at Chelmsford Crown Court today (Thursday 15 August).
The aircraft were owned by Prudential Insurance and by an investment group, according to charges read to the court.
Essex Police previously said that pop star Taylor Swift’s private jet, which Just Stop Oil said had landed at Stansted “mere hours before”, was not at the airport at the time.
The two defendants are due to stand trial at the same court on Monday 15 September next year, with the trial expected to last three to four days.
Prosecutors told an earlier hearing that the cost of removing the paint was £52,000.
Judge Mary Loram scheduled a pre-trial review hearing for Tuesday 26 August next year.
She granted both defendants bail, with conditions including that they do not go within a mile of an airport save for on moving public transport.
Why trial, breaking into a airport then putting people lives at risk spraying onto planes that could get into engines. Should be jailed right away like the rioters.
The rioters who have been jailed have all pled guilty so no trial was necessary which is why they have been dealt with quickly.
Those pleading not guilty will be tried at a later date.
Lots were jailed just of video evidence there was no need for a trial, there is video evidence of these people doing criminal damage. But if as you suggest they plead not guilty at trial they should hopefully get a longer sentence.
Bang them up for a very long time, I wonder how they got there walked?
Any word on the Manchester Airport alleged nose breakers? Gone very quiet😳
If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime. Two probably otherwise reasonable people brainwashed into trashing their own lives.
This was serious crime the planes would have had to be fully checked out in case the spray got into engines . This case should be fast tracked so a trial happens very soon. As they have probably pleaded not guilty a tougher sentence should be given.
On the day that we celebrate our youth achieving the best A level results for a very long time, we have, in tandem, an insight into the dimmest.
Travel for work and shipping of goods will never stop. We have a global markets which could never be all brought back to rural isolated living. I bet these fools eat avocado and aubergine, tomatoes and jackfruit. The biggest fools are always hypocrites.
If this JSO group had any intelligence at all it would be to encourage and work with the aerospace industry to hurry along alternative fuels, which allows the world to operate, help the environmental concerns, and most importantly takes unimaginable revenue out of the middle-east where they use wealth to oppress women and put sub-machine guns into the hands of their children. But JSO don’t do that, do they. They just get two over-aged student types to throw orange paint over an aeroplane, because that is the pathetically low intelligence of their group. It’s pitiful. Our A-level students will work and achieve that goal, something these JSO morons will never do, but will nevertheless do it for their benefit.
We need rapid progress to move away from oil, not stop the world at this place of absolute reliance on it. Like the saying goes – if you are going through hell, don’t stop, keep going. You honestly couldn’t find more brain-dead people.
Hope they have their affairs in order . If found guilty, they are looking at a 5 year stretch going by today’s sentencing under starmers crackdown