Five charged after Just Stop Oil protesters disrupted London Pride

Watch the moment protesters halted a London Pride bus

Five people have been charged after Just Stop Oil protesters disrupted London’s Pride march on Saturday.

Police said the five people, who range from 20 years old to 68 were charged under the Public Order Act with behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and were bailed to attend Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday.

Two other men, aged 19 and 22, have been released on bail pending further inquiries, the force added.

All seven were arrested at about 1.25pm on Saturday, after Just Stop Oil activists disrupted London’s Pride march at Down Street, Piccadilly, over the parade accepting sponsorship money from "high-polluting industries".

All of them were arrested after blocking traffic for around 16 minutes, with the parade continuing soon after.

In a statement, LGBTQ+ members of the group said: "These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries."

LGBT+ people are "suffering first" in the "accelerating social breakdown" caused by climate change, they added.

"Pride was born from protest," the statement continued.

"It speaks to how far we’ve come as a community that high-polluting industries and the banks that fund them now see Pride as a useful vehicle for sanitising their reputations, waving rainbow flags in one hand whilst accelerating social collapse with the other."

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