Blockade mob get fines of just £100
Six guilty over printworks eco stunt
SIX eco- protesters were yesterday fined as little as £100 for a printing press blockade which prevented newspapers being delivered to shops.
The stunt saw more than a million papers and magazines destroyed and recycled as lorries were barred from entering or leaving the site for nine hours, a court heard.
More than 100 Extinction Rebellion activists blocked entrances to printworks at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, Merseyside, on September 4, 2020, stopping the distribution of 3.5million newspapers – including the Daily Mail.
The mob, who used vans, bamboo structures and even a boat, claimed they wanted to send a message about global warming.
Yesterday’s conviction of six people for aggravated trespass over the Knowsley blockade brings the total of convictions over the two stunts to at least 28 – although no one is believed to have been sent to prison.
Former zoology student Lydia Dibben, of no fixed address, was fined £100.
The 24-year-old daughter of a jewellery designer now works for a market garden for her bed and board.
Stuart Akroyd, 47, a father- of- five who ‘ survives on donations’ as he does not take benefits for ‘ideological’ reasons, was fined the same amount.
Also of no fixed address, he has previous convictions including obstructing a constable.
William Morgan, 40, a private tutor from Sheffield who has a maths PhD, was given a 12-month conditional discharge, as was apprentice carpenter Rhiann Beaumont, 27, of no fixed address. Roman Paluch-Machnik, 29, of Hanwell, London, was fined £100 while Thomas Dalton, 23, of Bristol, who the court heard earns £25,000 a year, was fined £300.
All six, none of whom gave evidence at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court, were each ordered to pay £750 towards prosecution costs plus a victim surcharge.
Earlier Thomas Challinor, prosecuting, said whatever the ‘righteousness or otherwise’ of their cause, the economic damage was considerable.