A man who disrupted a World Snooker Championship match in Sheffield by jumping onto the table and covering it in orange powder has been given an 18-month community order. Edred Whittingham, 26, also had to pay £899 in compensation for damaging the table and carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. Co-defendant Margaret Reid, 53, was given a two-year community order and told to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work after being found guilty of attempting to cause criminal damage on another table.
Whittingham disrupted a match between Robert Milkins and Joe Perry at the Crucible Theatre on 17 April 2023, in front of an international TV audience. Completion of the first-round match was delayed until the following day as a result of the powder throwing. Reid’s attempts to disrupt the match on the other table, on which Mark Allen and Fan Zhengyi were playing, were foiled when she was stopped by referee Olivier Marteel.
In a victim impact statement read to court, World Snooker Tour CEO Simon Brownell said spectators were “robbed” of entertainment. “They bought a ticket to our event and gave their best effort to destroy it, without a care in the world for the thousands of people who saved their money to attend,” he said. Security costs had increased by “hundreds of thousands of pounds” following the incident.
Whittingham told the BBC he would continue protesting, adding: “We’re facing a climate crisis. Prison time, community service, it’s not going to deter us.” District Judge Daniel Curtis told the pair prison was “almost inevitable” if they continued their criminal activities. He sentenced Whittingham to a 25-day rehabilitation order along with paying £390 in trial costs and also ordered Reid to pay £390 and a victim surcharge of £114
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