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Three Just Stop Oil activists have been banned from protesting in London forward of their trial for allegedly throwing soup at two Vincent Van Gogh work on the National Gallery.
Mary Somerville, 77, Stephen Simpson, 71, and Phillipa Green, 24, are every charged with two counts of damaging the frames of Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888 by dousing the paintings in soup.
The three appeared at Southwark Crown Court earlier and pleaded not responsible earlier than being launched on conditional bail.
The judge banned them from protest motion inside the boundary of the M25 till their trial – which is scheduled to start in January 2026.
Mr Simpson, of Shipley, West Yorkshire, and Ms Somerville, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, attended court docket in individual, whereas Ms Green, from Penryn in Cornwall, appeared by video hyperlink.
Their lawyer, Raj Chada, argued the ban was a “disproportional” infringement on their proper to protest as a result of London is “the seat of government”.
But Judge Alexander Milne stated: “The application of the defendants’ right to protest is a relative one – and there seems to be a great deal of blurring between the exercise of that right and the commission of criminal offences.
“This court docket isn’t banning them from lawful protest anyplace else within the UK, however I’ll ban them from taking part in any protest inside the M25.”
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