Just Stop Oil activists fined for damaging Last Supper

Activists from the Just Stop Oil climate protest group struck at the Royal Academy of Arts in July

Five environmental protesters who glued themselves to the frame of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper have been fined for causing criminal damage.

Jessica Agar, 22, Simon Bramwell, 50, Caspar Hughes, 51, Lucy Porter, 47, and Tristan Strange, 40, staged a Just Stop Oil demonstration at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, central London.

District Judge William Nelson described their actions of 5 July as "reckless".

Each defendant was fined £486 at City of London Magistrates' Court.

Climate activists Simon Bramwell, Lucy Porter and Caspar Hughes were among five Just Stop Oil protesters charged with causing criminal damage

The defendants were also accused of causing £539.40 of damage to a nearby sofa, while Hughes has admitted spray-painting "No New Oil" on a wall under the artwork.

The judge said that although the "primary intention" of the protest "was to gain media attention and not to cause damage to a work of art", the five were reckless in that they knew damage would be a "by-product" of their actions.

However, he concluded they were not responsible for damage to the sofa, because CCTV evidence showed they were "nowhere near" it during their demonstration.

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