Three members of climate activist group Just Stop Oil have been found guilty of aggravated trespass at Wimbledon tennis courts in July 2019. Deborah Wilde, Simon Milner-Edwards, and William Ward were all involved in the protest, which involved throwing confetti and puzzle pieces onto the court. While they all admitted to entering the court, they denied that this was tantamount to aggravated trespass. However, the City of London Magistrates’ Court ruled that they were guilty of the charge. Sentencing will take place at a later date.
Wilde and Milner-Edwards entered Court 18 at Wimbledon, during a match between Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov and Japan’s Sho Shimabukuro. Michelle Dite, operations director at the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), which runs the competition, testified that the pair threw “around 1,000” puzzle pieces from a jigsaw that had been purchased at the tournament, as well as confetti. The scene that greeted her was “very unsettling” and players from the match appeared “very frustrated, probably quite intimidated”, she said. Wimbledon staff cleared the jigsaw pieces and confetti with their hands and leaf blowers.
The protest was part of a wider campaign by Just Stop Oil, which had previously demonstrated at the World Snooker Championships and Ashes Test at Lord’s Cricket Ground. According to Dite, Wimbledon had spent “hundreds of thousands of pounds” to manage potential protests by the group. Court 18, where the Wimbledon protest occurred, is a show court that is extensively covered by video cameras.
Despite the guilty verdict, Just Stop Oil remains intent on highlighting the role of British Petroleum in supporting the fossil fuel industry. In a statement released after the verdict, the group said “We’re here to stop BP’s sponsorship of major sports events as part of tackling climate change. We’ve persuaded the BMA to our point of view, now we need public opinion on our side.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More