Two climate activists who glued their hands to John Constable’s painting The Hay Wain have been found guilty of causing criminal damage.
Hannah Hunt, 23, and Eben Lazarus, 22, attacked the artwork during a Just Stop Oil protest at the National Gallery.
The pair taped posters of a ‘dystopian version’ of the piece over the 1821 rural Suffolk landscape before gluing their hands to its frame, causing £1,000 worth of damage.
Giving evidence at Westminster magistrates’ court, Hunt said she aimed to ‘inspire others’, claiming that she ‘brought hope’ to a group of schoolchildren who clapped and cheered in the gallery.
Both protesters have insisted they had tried different methods of campaigning but with ‘little impact’.
District Judge Daniel Sternberg said the damage caused was ‘significant not trivial’ and that the defendants were reckless.
Hunt and Lazarus, both of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, will be sentenced at a later date.
The oil-y shuffle! Activists block roads in rush hour
Just Stop Oil protesters blocked rush-hour traffic in south London yesterday morning by shuffling along the Old Kent Road on a slow march.
The activists, wearing orange high-vis vests, have changed their approach by walking slowly in the road instead of halting traffic entirely. ‘We are alert to these new tactics,’ said a police spokesman. ‘Officers will intervene where serious disruption is caused.’
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