Greta Thunberg given 'final warning' before London oil protest arrest

Greta Thunberg's arrest at a protest outside an oil and gas conference in London last year followed her refusal to leave after police had given the Swedish climate activist a "final warning", prosecutors said on Thursday.

Greta Thunberg's arrest at a protest outside an oil and gas conference in London last year followed her refusal to leave after police had given the Swedish climate activist a "final warning", prosecutors said on Thursday. Thunberg, who became a prominent campaigner worldwide after staging weekly protests in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018, is on trial with four others at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court for an offence under the Public Order Act.

All five, who are aged between 19 and 59 and have pleaded not guilty, are accused of failing to comply with an order by senior police officers to move their protest to a designated area near the conference. Thunberg, 21, was arrested on Oct. 17 while protesting outside a hotel where the Energy Intelligence Forum was hosting oil and gas industry leaders.

Prosecutor Luke Staton said that, after protesters blocked the entrances to the hotel, officers required them to move as they reasonably believed the protest "may result in serious disruption to the life of the community". Thunberg was told she needed to leave or would be arrested and was given a "final warning", Staton said.

"She said that she was staying where she was and so she was arrested," the prosecutor added. Thunberg was sitting in the well of the court and writing in a notebook as Metropolitan Police Superintendent Matthew Cox, the most senior officer on the scene during the protest, gave evidence about imposing the condition on the protest.

"I didn't take the decision lightly," he said. A smiling Thunberg earlier made her way through photographers and police officers to chants of "climate protest is not a crime" by environmental activists outside the court.

The trial is being conducted by a judge without a jury and is expected to take two days. If convicted, the defendants would face a maximum fine of 2,500 pounds ($3,160) each.