A RETIRED priest, the Revd Sue Parfitt, is certainly one of two women to have been charged with criminal damage after the glass protecting the Magna Carta within the British Library was targeted during a climate-change protest on Friday.
The Metropolitan Police reported that two individuals hit with a hammer and chisel the protective enclosure across the historic document. Ms Parfitt, who’s 82, from Bristol, and Judith Bruce, 85, from Swansea, were arrested, and later released on bail. They are on account of appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 20 June.
A video of the protest was released by the climate campaign group Just Stop Oil, which reported that the pair had glued themselves to the enclosure holding an indication which read “The Government is breaking the law.”
The previous week, the High Court had ruled that the Government must redraft its climate-change policy since it was not robust enough to satisfy the targeted cut in greenhouse-gas emissions. The legal challenge was brought by environmental groups.
Ms Parfitt said: “The Magna Carta is rightly revered, being of great importance to our history, to our freedoms, and to our laws. But there shall be no freedom, no lawfulness, no rights, if we allow climate breakdown to turn into the catastrophe that’s now threatened.
“We must get things in proportion. The abundance of life on earth, the climate stability that permits civilisation to proceed, is what should be revered and guarded above all else, even above our most precious artefacts.”
The British Library said in a press release that its security team had “intervened to forestall further damage to the case, which was minimal”, and that “the Magna Carta itself stays undamaged.”
Ms Parfitt has taken part in several previous climate-motivated protests lately, including those organised by Just Stop Oil (News, 9 June 2023). The group are reported to be among the many “extreme” organisations named in a forthcoming report by Lord Walney, which, he recommends, ought to be reprimanded in an analogous option to terrorist groups, due to their routine use of criminal acts to further their cause.
The report, commissioned by the Government, was on account of be delivered to Downing Street on Monday.
In a draft copy seen by the BBC, Lord Walney said: “Militant groups like Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil are using criminal tactics to create mayhem and hold the general public and staff to ransom without fear of consequence. Banning terror groups has made it harder for his or her activists to plan crimes — that approach ought to be prolonged to extreme protest groups, too.”
A yr ago, the Public Order Bill became an Act of Parliament, allowing police to detain anyone merely on suspicion of planning an motion. During its passage through Parliament, faith leaders argued that the Bill, which was conceived within the wake of disruptive protests by climate campaigners, would criminalise peculiar residents who engaged in peaceful protests, including prayer vigils, public acts of worship, and community events (News, 27 January 2023; Comment, 24 February 2023).
