Just Stop Oil activists found guilty of criminal damage over jet paint stunt

Two Just Stop Oil activists who sought to spray orange paint on Taylor Swift’s private jet have been found guilty of the criminal damage of two planes.

Jennifer Kowalski, 29, and Cole Macdonald, 23, breached the perimeter fence at Stansted Airport in Essex with an angle grinder then took turns spraying two planes with paint and filming it.

Their trial, at Chelmsford Crown Court, was told they had been targeting the pop star’s jet but the two planes they sprayed belonged to an insurance firm and an investment group.

Kowalski, of Dumbarton in Scotland and Macdonald, of Brighton, East Sussex, said they had not intended to damage the two aircraft on June 20 last year but both were found guilty of criminal damage.

Jurors took less than two hours of deliberation to reach their unanimous verdicts.

Judge Alexander Mills said there was “no dispute” Kowalski and Macdonald caused the damage, spraying the aircraft with orange paint from a fire extinguisher.

David Barr, prosecuting, had said in his closing speech to jurors: “In reality the only issue for you to decide is what was going through the minds of those defendants when they sprayed the aircraft.

“Did they intend to cause damage or were they reckless as to whether damage would be caused.”

Solicitor advocate Laura O’Brien, defending, said Kowalski had believed the paint could be hosed off the planes.

Rebecca Martin, for Macdonald, said: “She believed, because she was told, it (the paint) wouldn’t have stuck to, stained or corroded the aircraft.

“She believed it would just slide off as that’s what she was told.”

The judge asked that pre-sentence reports be prepared about the two defendants, adding: “They will of course be all options pre-sentence reports.”

He bailed both defendants until October 27 when they are due to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Laura O’Brien, partner at law firm Hodge Jones & Allen which represents both defendants, and who also represented Kowalski in court, said afterwards: “Both my clients simply wanted to spark debate around the climate crisis and had no intention of causing criminal damage or disrupting the airport.

“All they were trying to achieve was to get Taylor Swift to speak up about the climate crisis, to harness her celebrity to bring attention to the climate crisis and to highlight the singer’s frequent use of her private jet.

“It is surely time for the Government to focus on the climate crisis that threatens our very existence rather than wasting taxpayers’ money prosecuting women involved in a peaceful act of protest and who are no threat to the public.”