Wimbledon protesters appear in court

Two Just Stop Oil protesters who disrupted play at Wimbledon have appeared in court.

Deborah Wilde, 68, and Simon Milner-Edwards, 66, were arrested after running on to Court 18, where they threw confetti and jigsaw pieces during a match between Grigor Dimitrov and Sho Shimabukuro on July 5.

Retired Anglican priest Reverend Susan Parfitt appeared at the same court on Monday for her part in a Just Stop Oil march through central London and around Parliament in May this year.

The 82-year-old climate activist was previously pictured climbing on to the roof of a DLR train at Shadwell station in October 2019 but was later acquitted.

Speaking at court, Rev Parfitt, from Bristol, accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of “throwing petrol on a burning planet” by approving more than 100 new fossil fuel licences in the North Sea.

She added: “I have to do everything I can to stop it.

“I have to do this. It is not I that is guilty, it is the Government.”

Rev Parfitt pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to comply with a condition of the Public Order Act as a procession participant on May 31 2023.

She will be tried by a district judge at City of London Magistrates’ Court in October, followed by Wilde and Milner-Edwards, who will face trial in November.