15 people charged after airport expansion protest which blocked M4 junction

Staff reporter(wp/es):

Fifteen people have been charged after protesters staged a die-in at Heathrow on Saturday.

Demonstrators reportedly stormed onto the M4 Spur Road junction and lay down in front of moving traffic at the rally against the airport’s planned third runway.

Cars were forced to stop and traffic was brought to a standstill outside the west London airport as the activists lay in the road.

Seven Londoners and eight others all aged between 21 and 67 were charged with wilful obstruction of the highway after the incident.

They were all bailed to appear at Ealing Magistrates Court on Thursday, December 22.

The seven Londoners accused are: Isabelle Anderson, 30, of Stratford; Madeleine Allis-Petersen, 24, of Ealing; Joanne Louise Bodimeade, 28, of Lambeth; Alexis Delage, 25, of Lewisham; Sophia Lysaczanko, 28, of Haringey; Tom Venner-Woodcock, 29, of Southwark, and Tess Lotter, 30, of Camden.

The others charged are: Antoine Thalmann, 25, and Henry Owen, 23, both of Oxford; Simon Bramwell, 44, of Stroud, Gloucestershire; Ian Bray, 49, of Kirklees, West Yorkshire; Graham Lewis, 53, of Wells, Somerset; Thomas Harford, 26, and Margaret Charnley, 67, both of Bristol, Avon, and Sibi Moore, 21, of Sidmouth, Devon.

The protest was organised following last month’s announcement that the government would be backing the £16 billion Heathrow expansion plan to build a third runway.

Others at the protest included former MP for Richmond Park, Zac Goldsmith, who has been a vocal opponent of the third runway and resigned from his seat when the government announced it had approved the plan.