Two Just Stop Oil protesters who disrupted Wimbledon appear in court
Two Just Stop Oil activists who ran onto a court and threw confetti into the air during a WImbledon game have appeared in court.
Deborah Wilde, 68, and Simon Milner-Edwards, 66, disrupted a match between Grigor Dimitrov and Sho Shimabukuro on Court 18 on July 5.
Wilde, a retired teacher from London, and Milner-Edwards, a retired musician from Manchester, were both arrested on the day.
They appeared at Westminster magistrates court today, where they accepted they had gone on to the tennis court – but they both pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated trespass.
Retired Anglican priest Reverend Susan Parfitt appeared at the same court on the same day for her part in a Just Stop Oil march through central London and around Parliament in May.
The 82-year-old climate activist was previously pictured climbing on to the roof of a DLR train at Shadwell station in October 2019 but was later acquitted.
Speaking at court, Rev Parfitt, from Bristol, accused prime minister Rishi Sunak of ‘throwing petrol on a burning planet’ by approving more than 100 new fossil fuel licences in the North Sea.
She added: ‘I have to do everything I can to stop it. I have to do this. It is not I that is guilty, it is the government.’
Rev Parfitt pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to comply with a condition of the Public Order Act as a procession participant on May 31 2023.
She will be tried by a district judge at City of London Magistrates’ Court in October, followed by Wilde and Milner-Edwards, who will face trial in November.
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