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. Wilde, a retired teacher from London, and Milner-Edwards, a retired musician from Manchester, accepted that they had gone on to the court but pleaded not guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday to charges of aggravated trespass. 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 Reverend Susan Parfitt, climate activist ‘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.