Two Just Stop Oil supporters, Margaret Reid and Eddie Whittingham, were sentenced at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court following their conviction for disrupting the World Snooker Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre last April.
They interrupted the championship to call on the government to stop all new UK fossil fuel projects and to encourage UK sporting institutions to join the fight against the government’s genocidal fossil fuel policies.
Margaret Reid, 53, a former museum professional from Kendal, Cumbria, was found guilty of attempting to cause criminal damage, while Eddie Whittingham, 26, was found guilty of criminal damage after a one-day trial.
On 17 April 2023, during a first-round match at the World Snooker Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, Eddie climbed onto a snooker table and threw orange powder paint, disrupting the match. Margaret also attempted to carry out the action on another table but was intercepted by referee Olivier Marteel before she could begin.
The sentences handed down by the court were as follows: Margaret Reid received a 2-year community order, 100 hours of unpaid work, 10 days of rehabilitative activities, £390 in court costs, and a £115 victim surcharge, while Eddie Whittingham received an 18-month community order, 200 hours of community service, 25 days of rehabilitative activities, and about £1,200 in costs in total.
Margaret Reid questioned the priorities of the justice system, stating:
“What should the criminal justice system be putting its energy into? Cracking down on me for getting half my backside onto a snooker table, or prosecuting the real criminals who are keeping us locked into reliance on deadly fossil fuels?
We are hurtling towards climate breakdown and the collapse of society. The evidence mounts up every day. But the scientists who bear witness to it are ignored and the ordinary people who try to raise the alarm are prosecuted. Meanwhile it’s comfortable business as usual for the criminal justice system, for the people who are supposed to protect us and for the fossil fuel giants. Business as usual will destroy our futures.
I am not scared of the criminal justice system. It can throw whatever it wants at me. But I am scared of a future where millions of people are starving, and where whole populations will be forced from their homes.
I am sorry for the disruption caused to individuals at that tournament – but the impacts of climate breakdown will be far worse and will affect everyone who was in that room.
How long before the real criminals are held to account for their reckless criminal damage and irreversible destruction of life?”
Eddie Whittingham, a former student at Exeter University, said before the sentencing:
“It doesn’t matter what they do to us. They can arrest us, they can stick us in prison. But the world’s leading scientists have just said that we’re almost certainly going over 2.5°C of global warming. This is a f**king catastrophe. Get on the streets and join us this summer as we take action at airports.”
