Two eco-zealots who were filmed pouring orange liquid latex over Elon Musk‘s Optimus robot at Westfield’s Tesla showroom have denied criminal damage.
Catherine Nash, 74, and Nigel Fleming, 63, climbed onto the podium display at Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush and unfurled a Just Stop Oil banner.
They said: ‘Shut down the fascists! The government is failing to protect our democracy from fossil fuel companies and power hungry billionaires.
‘I will not stand by and let the climate crisis cause global food destruction, mass starvation and the collapse of civil society. Shut down the fascists.’
‘While the rich dream of Nazi robots and swasti-cars, what the rest of us need is warm housing, clean affordable energy and cheap public transport,’ they added.
‘Don’t let billionaires decide your future. Let’s reclaim democracy.’
Nash, of Castle Green Close, Westmorland and Furness, and Fleming, of Barnet, both denied criminal damage at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Jonathan Bryan, prosecuting, earlier told how the pair produced a ‘container of thick, opaque orange liquid which they tipped over a display robot’.
Just Stop Oil eco-zealot Catherine Nash, 74, (pictured) was arrested after targeting Elon Musk’s Optimus robot at Westfield’s Tesla showroom earlier this year
Nash and Nigel Fleming, 63, poured orange paint over the futuristic robot and declared they were fighting fascists
Both Nash and Fleming denied criminal damage at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday
They then took off their jackets revealing JSO T-shirts and a banner.
Magistrate Jessica Marshall bailed the pair ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing at Southwark Crown Court on October 22.
Optimus robots are designed to help people with household chores and have previously been described as ‘dystopian’.
The hearing comes after two other Just Stop Oil activists who planned to spray orange paint on Taylor Swift’s private jet were found guilty of the criminal damage of two planes last week.
Jennifer Kowalski, 29, and Cole Macdonald, 23, breached the perimeter fence at Stansted Airport in Essex with an angle grinder then took turns spraying two planes with paint and filming it.
They then sat together, holding hands, while waiting for police to arrive.
Their trial at Chelmsford Crown Court was told they had been targeting the pop star’s jet but the aircraft they vandalised belonged to an insurance firm and an investment group.
Kowalski, of Dumbarton in Scotland and Macdonald, of Brighton, East Sussex, argued they had not intended to damage the two aircraft on June 20 last year but both were found guilty of criminal damage.
Jurors took less than two hours of deliberation to reach their unanimous verdicts.
