White faces that made judge ask: What’s this protest got to do with black lives?
THE ragbag gang of Leftwing protesters who brought a busy airport to a standstill for hours walked free from court yesterday.
Nine activists acting under the banner of the Black Lives Matter campaign brought misery to more than 9,000 passengers at London City Airport.
However, district judge Elizabeth Roscoe said she was confused by their motivation and struggled to see how the causes of climate change and the mistreatment of black suspects by the police in the US were linked.
The group, most of whom come from privileged white middle class backgrounds, breached the airport’s security with two toy inflatable rafts before camping on the runway.
Yesterday, they were left smiling and hugging each other and their supporters outside Westminster Magistrates’ court after the judge told them to pay £95 each and not to do it again. One of the demonstrators, Natalie Fiennes, 25, a cousin of actor Ralph, muttered, ‘Go white privilege,’ as she was sentenced – an apparent reference to claims that white suspects get better treatment in the courts.
Sentencing the group, the judge said she found it ‘rather hard’ to make the link between the airport and the Black Lives Matter campaign which ‘protests against the treatment of the black population by the police in America’.
‘I am not sure how that links to City Airport and climate change.’ London City Airport refused to comment. All the activists admitted aggravated trespass and were given conditional discharges. These are the defendants:
THE FIENNES COUSIN
TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR- old Natalie Geraldine Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is a cousin of actor Ralph. She is a veteran of climate camp protests, taking her Cath Kidston tent. The LSE graduate, who studied English literature and sociology, lives with her parents in their £2million house just off Clapham Common. She told the court she supports herself by babysitting.
THE LESBIAN EXPERT
ESME Waldron, 23, a University of Sussex film graduate and former Churst on Grammar School pupil, is a documentary maker and self-proclaimed expert on lesbian culture. Once named A-level ‘ student of the year’, she later made a film about older lesbians called Now You See Me.
THE BUDDHIST
BEN Tippet gave his address as Fiennes’ family home in Wandsworth and is another LSE graduate. With blonde-dyed hair, the 24-yearold is an outspoken critic of the arms trade. One of his online user names is ‘Buddhist Ben’.
THE EXPERT CLIMBER
Spanish graduate Sama Baka is one of three protesters who live on the Northern Soul houseboat, moored at Roydon, Essex. Baka, 27, is an expert climber who has volunteered for clean air projects and raised cash for clean water in Uganda.
THE MUSICIAN
Anti-aviation campaigner Richard Collet-White, who has a degree in French and Russian from Oxford’s Exeter College, is jobless. The 23year-old is an accomplished tenor, who played keyboards in a ska band and has volunteered for causes from
Oxfam to community food growing.
THE GREEN FANATIC
The second houseboat resident, Sam Lund-Harket, 32, supports activists across the UK in a range of movements from disaster aid to the RSPB. An environmental officer at university, the shaven-headed campaigner says he has been passionate about the planet since he was 16. He is a leading activist with the campaign group Global Justice Now and has worked with other similar groups.
THE STAGE DIRECTOR
The final houseboat dweller, Corbynista Alex Etchart, 26, founded and directed West End show the Sex Workers Opera, performed by real-life burlesque dancers. He is a musician who works with ‘youth empowerment’ charities and has a degree in social anthropology and ethnomusicology from SOAS. His father is a Uruguayan who claims to be living in the UK in political exile. Etchart has previously taken part in antifracking camps.
THE ORGANIC FARMER
WILLIAM Pettifer, 27, works on an organic Somerset farm and claims to be plotting the ‘downfall of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’. The son of a company director, he took part in a blockade of Heathrow Airport last November.
THE STUDENT ACTIVIST
THE oddest member of an odd group, Deborah Francis-Grayson, 31, lives in Slough where she is doing a media and communications PhD.
She is interested in ‘intergenerational education work’ and volunteers with various groups to get people involved in politics. She has a conviction relating to a demonstration at Parliament against climate change in 2009.