Activist university academic in the dock over Scottish Parliament climate protest

Justin Kenrick is alleged to have breached Coronavirus regulations by attending at the parliament building and making his way on to the roof of the building last month.

Kenrick, from Portobello, is then said to have sat on the edge of the roof during wet and windy conditions and fastened a banner to a ledge of the building.

The 61-year-old is alleged to have lost control of the banner whereby parts of it fell to the ground outside the parliament building’s main entrance to the danger of police officers and other emergency service workers.

He is also said to have breached the current Coronavirus regulations by attending the parliament on March 4 this year without reasonable excuse and refusing to comply with police instructions.

Kenrick, who is a self-declared member of Extinction Rebellion Scotland, represented himself when he appeared in the dock at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to deny the charges against him.

Sheriff Peter McCormack placed Kenrick on bail with a condition he is not allowed to attend at the Scottish Parliament building and set down a trial date for later this year.

Kenrick is alleged to have culpably and recklessly climbed on to the roof of the Scottish Parliament, sit on the edge of the roof, fasten a banner to a ledge of the building while weather conditions were wet and windy.

He is then said to have lost control of the banner causing parts of it to fall to the ground all to the danger of police officers and emergency service workers who were attempting to protect him from harm and to the danger of himself on March 4 this year.

Kenrick is also alleged to have breached Coronavirus regulations by attending at the parliament building and refusing to comply with police instructions to desist from protesting on the same date.

The self-declared anthropologist activist is currently Senior Policy Advisor at the Forest Peoples Programme which works to support forest peoples in Africa to determine their own futures.

He is also a University of Edinburgh Research Fellow in social anthropology and has previously lectured in anthropology at Glasgow University.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.