FOUR members of the direct action group This Is Rigged have been convicted of breach of the peace for bringing the UCI cycling road race championships to a halt.
Rebecca Kerr, 29, Catriona Roberts, 21 and Romane Moulin, 26, were all admonished and Ben Taylor, 29, was fined £250 after they chained themselves together and glued themselves to a road on August 6, stopping the cycle race in the Campsie Fells for more than an hour.
Over the course of the year, the group blockaded 70 per cent of Scotland’s petrol supply at Grangemouth twice, scaled Falkirk’s Kelpies monument, painted the Scottish Parliament red, and spray-painted a portrait of Charles Windsor with the Highland Land League slogan “is treasa tuath na tighearna — the people are mightier than a lord.”
The actions were taken as part of a concerted campaign of civil disobedience they hoped would drive climate issues up the political agenda in Scotland and beyond.
Ms Roberts told Falkirk Sheriff Court: “If your house is on fire and you scream in the street, stop the traffic and become rooted in fear, would you be arrested for breach of the peace?
“No, of course not. Well, our home is on fire, and just because you may be privileged enough to not feel it yet, that does not mean we shouldn’t be screaming in the streets.”
However, it did appear that the protest did lead some to “feel it.”
Vatican team cyclist Rien Schuurhuis later said that, during the delay in the race, cyclists discussed the impacts of the climate crisis on their countries.
And Sheriff Grant McCulloch, despite going on to convict the defendants, told them the climate crisis is “incredibly relevant to the world,” adding: “As an individual — not as a sheriff, but as an individual — I accept what you’re saying.”
