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Police have arrested 16 Just Stop Oil protestors after the iconic Stonehenge was targeted with orange paint.
Dramatic footage posted by the climate group shows a series of police raids as the eco-zealots are now campaigning to raise money from supporters.
It comes after Hackney Police arrested a number of key organisers for the group at a supposed soup night last night who had allegedly been plotting to cause mayhem for thousands of holidaymakers this summer by disrupting airports across the UK.
In a video posted by JSO, a policeman can be heard saying: ‘You are under arrest on suspicion of partaking in a conspiracy to interfere with key national infrastructure’ and goes on to mention the ‘plot to cause serious disruption to UK airports’.
Police can then be seen flicking through the pages of the protestors’ books and cupboards, saying ‘people can hide things in all sorts of places’.
Footage shows police arriving at one of the Just Stop Oil protestors’ doors to arrest them
Officers can be seen flicking through books and cupboards, explaining: ‘People can hide things in all sorts of places’
One of the protestors in the video who was arrested says to his partner ‘alright darling, catch you later’
Just Stop Oil protesters spraying Stonehenge with orange paint in their latest stunt
The climate group said police raids resulted in ‘at least 16 arrests’ and their ‘only crime’ was that they were Just Stop Oil protestors.
As well as spray painting Stonehenge, the group made headlines after they sprayed two private jets at Stansted airport.
One of these jets was thought to have belonged to Taylor Swift, however it was actually revealed that a US bank’s jet had been targeted.
One of the planes targeted was an 18-seat Gulfstream G650, which would be worth around £60million when new, according to documents we have seen.
At Stonehenge, Rajan Naidu, 73, and Niamh Lynch, 21, ran up to the stones and attacked them as members of the public tried to intervene.
Video footage showed two people wearing white shirts with the Just Stop Oil slogan, approaching the stone circle with canisters and spraying orange powder paint.
The group claimed it would wash off in the rain but archaeologists are concerned about potential damage to the 5,000-year-old world icon and landmark.
Tim Daw, a local farmer and historic property steward who used to volunteer at the site, carried out an experiment by mixing cornflour and food dye and then applying it to a small piece of sarsen, which is the same stone as Stonehenge.
On the piece of sarsen a series of little back dots are visible, which are the lichen.
He then washed the bottom half of the stone before gently rubbing it and noticed that the cornflour was in the stone’s pores and therefore ‘displacing the lichen’.
Mr Daw told the show that he was ‘worried’ about the lichen on the monument, and said of yesterday’s attack: ‘I was shocked and saddened. I couldn’t believe it.
Jennifer Kowalski and Cole Macdonald next to a private jet which they spray painted at Stansted airport’s VIP airfield
Several stones were covered in the substance before the protesters stopped and sat cross legged on the grass
‘Stonehenge is so precious, not just to me but to so many people. To do this act, which I think has worked against their cause, just seems pointless and damaging.’
Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer were united in the condemnation of Just Stop Oil after the incident.
The Prime Minister described it as a ‘disgraceful act of vandalism’ while the Labour leader branded the group ‘pathetic’.
Mr Daw described this on BBC Breakfast as a ‘very, very rare plant organism that grows on rocks’ which ‘takes hundreds of years to grow because there’s no nutrition’.
But according to a source, the stunt at Stansted was only a ‘prelude’ to plans to disrupt even more airports over the coming months.
Speaking to The Times, the source said: ‘This is just another way of us taking action in the theatres of life we exist in because we’re not politicians.
‘Private jets are obviously mental for emissions and most people would agree they need to stop.
‘It’s a wake-up call for government that we need big radical changes.
‘If this incoming government doesn’t get us on war footing then we’re not going to have anywhere to fly to.’
MailOnline has contacted the Met Police.
