Just Stop Oil activists found guilty over protest at World Snooker Championships

Two Just Stop Oil activists have been found guilty of staging a protest at the World Snooker Championships which halted a match for 24 hours.

Home energy adviser Eddie Whittingham, 26, was found guilty at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on Friday of causing criminal damage after he jumped on the table and released an orange powder.

He told a judge his actions were “reasonable and proportionate in the light of the greater threat we are facing from the climate crisis”.

His fellow protester, ex-museum worker Margaret Reid, 53, was found guilty of attempting to cause criminal damage following the one-day trial.

A district judge was shown TV footage of Whittingham interrupting a match between Robert Milkins and Joe Perry on 17 April 2023 at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.

Wearing a Just Stop Oil T-shirt, the defendant could be seen releasing the orange substance - which he told the court was dyed corn starch powder - and kneeling amid the balls on the table before being hauled off by security.

The clip shown to the court went on to show Reid attempt to do the same on another table before she was tackled by referee Olivier Marteel.

Whittingham denied causing £899.90 damage to a snooker table, owned by the firm Xingpai, and Reid denied attempting to cause criminal damage.

But they were both found guilty of the offences by District Judge Daniel Curtis on Friday afternoon. They will be sentenced at a later date.

Giving evidence on Friday, Whittingham told the court he bought a ticket about a month before the incident, agreeing that it cost him more than £300 because he was wanted to be in a good position in the auditorium.

He said he had planned the protest in order to draw attention to Just Stop Oil’s campaign to change the Government’s policy on oil and gas extraction, which he told the court was “breaking the law”.

Whittingham said: “I didn’t intend to cause damage, I intended to cause disruption.”

He said he accepted there was a “risk” of damage taking place, adding that he thought it was “highly possible that (the powder) would be wiped off, or hoovered off, without causing significant damage to the baize or the table.”

Pressed by Alison Goldsmith, prosecuting, about whether he foresaw the risk of damage to the table, Whittingham said: “I judged that risk to be proportionate in the light of the existential threat we face from the climate crisis.”

He agreed that his actions caused inconvenience to those who attended for “peaceful enjoyment” and to the organisers of the tournament, who had to abandon play for the day on the table he targeted.

But the defendant told the district judge: “I consider it reasonable and proportionate in the light of the greater threat we are facing from the climate crisis.”

He told the court he minimised the disruption caused by not attaching himself to the table and complying with security and the police once he was off the table.

Giving her evidence, Reid cited her long experience as a conservator in the museum sector, saying she believed any powder could have been easily removed without causing damage.

She described it as an “unpleasant and scary thing to do” but said she had been driven to an “outrageous and disruptive act such as this”.

Reid said she had “no other effective options” open to her to halt the “pain and death and misery” that climate change will bring.

She said: “We need shaking out of our stupor. We need a shock. We need an action like we took to make us jump out of the pan.”

She said she has protested “politely” in the past, voted and written to her MP but “it hasn’t worked”, adding: “What is there that ordinary, powerless individuals can do?”

She continued: “I didn’t set out to cause criminal damage. I set out to draw attention to the dire situation that we are in.”

Asked about the impact of her actions on the people who had paid to watch a snooker match, the defendant said: “I’m really sorry about that but I was really aware that these same individuals would be so much worse affected by the impact of fossil fuels.”

The pair were given unconditional bail and will be sentenced at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on July 10.