Just Stop Oil supporter Lora Johnson, 38, was acquitted of criminal damage by a Jury in front of Judge Grieve at Southwark Crown Court today. She was arrested on October 14, 2022, for spraying the iconic, triangular Metropolitan Police sign with orange paint in front of New Scotland Yard during Just Stop Oil’s month of action.

Lora was among the 637 people detained by police during a period of relentless civil resistance that month, demanding that the government halts all new oil and gas licences and consents. A video of Lora’s arrest from two years ago on Westminster Bridge, where she proclaimed that “inaction on climate change is a death sentence for all,” has been viewed more than 11 million times.

Johnson said today:

“I’ve just been found not guilty after six days at Southwark Crown Court by a jury of my peers. The action I took was painting the New Scotland Yard sign orange, in resistance to the government’s genocidal approval of new oil and gas licences.

“I would like to ask the MET police: who are they there to serve and protect? The good people of this country? Or the oil-corrupted government? I would like to ask them how they are planning to police the mass hysteria, the panic, the fear, the looting, the theft, the hoarding and the inevitable violence that will result when our shelves are empty and we can’t feed our children?”