A third Just Stop Oil activist was recently charged in connection with a protest at the Stonehenge monument in June, after orange powder paint was sprayed on the ancient stones.
Luke Watson, a 35-year-old resident of Manuden, Bishop’s Stortford, was charged with “one count of aiding, abetting, counselling and/or procuring destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and one count of aiding, abetting, counselling and/or procuring causing a public nuisance,” according to a statement from the Wiltshire Police on November 18.
Two other Just Stop Oil protestors—Rajan Naidu, 73, of Gosford Street, Birmingham, and Niamh Lynch, 22, of Norfolk Road, Bedford—were previously charged on November 14. Both Naidu and Lynch were charged with “one count of destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and one count of causing a public nuisance.”
All three protestors are scheduled to appear in court for their first hearing on December 13. Naidu and Lynch being arrested shortly after the protest in June. The protest happened the day before the Summer Solstice, when thousands of visitors were expected to arrive at Stonehenge to celebrate.
In a statement, Just Stop Oil said that the protestors were “demanding that the incoming UK government commit to working with other governments to agree an equitable plan to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030” and that the organization was “demanding that our next government sign up to a legally binding treaty to phase out fossil fuels by 2030.”
The charges for Watson, Naidu, and Lynch follow the recent banning of three other Just Stop Oil activists from participating in protests in London; the issuance of a letter from directors of museum and galleries in the UK that climate protests “have to stop”; members of Just Stop Oil’s youth branch pasting an image of a Palestinian mother and child on Pablo Picasso’s 1901 painting Motherhood (La Maternité) at the National Gallery; and the acquittal of two Just Stop Oil activists who glued themselves to a J.M.W. Turner painting at the Manchester Art Gallery in July 2022.
The news of the third arrest was first reported by the Art Newspaper.