Greta Thunberg defied a police officer’s instruction to comply with an order to stop protesting outside an oil industry summit in central London last year, a court has heard.
The Swedish climate campaigner was one of five activists appearing at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday charged with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act” after they were told to leave the area.
Facing trial with her were Christofer Kebbon, Joshua James Unwin, Jeff Rice and Peter Barker. They face fines of up to £2,500 if found guilty.
They were arrested after taking part in protests organised by Fossil Free London and Greenpeace last October that blocked the entrances of the InterContinental hotel in Mayfair, the venue for the Energy Intelligence Forum (EIF) attended by fossil fuel executives and government ministers.
Critics called the event the “oily money conference” in a sardonic nod to its previous name, the Oil and Money conference. The chief executives of Aramco, Repsol, Shell, TotalEnergies and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation were among the people lined up to speak and to hand out awards, including “energy executive of the year”.
Luke Staton, prosecuting, described the moment Thunberg was arrested. “Miss Thunberg was stood outside the hotel entrance,” he said. “She was approached at around 1.12pm by [two police officers who] informed her of the condition and warned her that failure to comply would lead to her arrest.
“She said she was staying where she was, and she was arrested at 1.15pm.”
The arrests were made after Suella Braverman, the then home secretary, used a statutory instrument to lower the threshold at which police could enforce public order restrictions on protests to anything causing “more than minor” disruption.
Giving evidence, Supt Matthew Cox, the Met’s on-the-ground commander for the protest, described it as a “rapidly evolving situation” involving about 1,000 people at its height. He said he was forced to call for a “force mobilisation”, pulling officers from local duties, to gather enough personnel to police the incident.
Cox described how protesters used their bodies and banners to block the hotel’s entrances. “It looked as a deliberate attempt to stop people coming into and coming out of the hotel,” Cox said.
“It was a slow build but essentially the delegates were not able to get in or out of the hotel. It was relayed to me on a number of occasions by [hotel] security that guests were unable to get out as well.
“Essentially, people were really restricted on how they could access the hotel.”
After trying to persuade protesters to move away from the entrances, and unsuccessfully deploying a unit of specialist public order officers to try to physically clear them, Cox decided to issue an order under section 14 of the Public Order Act. This restricted protesters to an area away from the entrances and south of the hotel, adjacent to Piccadilly.
“I based it on the fact that the disruption to the life of the community was more than minor,” he said. “The definition of the legislation had changed recently, in that year: significant disruption had been clarified to now ‘more than minor disruption to the life of the community’. I took the community at that point to be the people using the hotel.”
Cox said he chose to make the specific order “for a number of reasons”. “It was a very straightforward condition that was understandable,” he said. “More important, the condition alleviated the problem of access to the hotel and, in my personal view, it maintained the right to assemble and have that freedom of expression right up close to the proximity of the hotel.
“I was trying to balance the desire to get that cause across against the need to access the hotel for all the users who wanted to use it.”
Police bodyworn video played to the court showed Thunberg standing silent, surrounded by chanting protesters, as a police officer set out to her the conditions of the section 14 order imposed on the protest. “Can you please leave?” it recorded him asking, to which Thunberg replies: “No.” “Do you understand that you will be arrested for it?” he asks her. “Yes,” she answers.
Giving evidence, Sgt Tony Sothinathan of the Met police said Thunberg was standing near to the entrance of the InterContinental Hotel with her arms linked with other protesters. “I explained to Miss Thunberg that Supt Cox, who was the chief constable, had directed the protest to move off and not cause any disruption as it was causing a serious disruption to the community.
“I explained to Miss Thunberg to move away on to Hamilton Place, junction with Piccadilly, where she could continue her protest peacefully. I then asked Miss Thunberg to leave, to which she refused. I explained to Miss Thunberg then that if she failed to comply with the directions she would be liable for arrest. She didn’t respond to me.”
Thunberg was subsequently arrested by another officer, PC David Lawrence.
On Thursday morning, climate activists protested outside the court in solidarity with those on trial, holding placards saying: “Climate protest is not a crime” and “Who are the real criminals?”
Joanna Warrington, an organiser with Fossil Free London, said: “The UK criminalises peaceful climate activists like Greta whilst rolling out the red carpet for climate criminals in Mayfair hotels.
“Fossil fuel corporations are most responsible for the climate crisis, and we will continue to hold them to account no matter what the state throws at us. We have to, because nothing is worse than losing everything.”
