WA news LIVE: Climate protesters slapped with $6500 in fines over protest at home of Woodside boss
Turning to breaking news from Perth Magistrates Court now, and three climate protesters who targeted the home of Woodside boss Meg O’Neill have been slapped with more than $6500 in fines after pleading guilty to attempted trespass and attempted unlawful damage over the incident, which was filmed by an ABC crew.
Jesse Noakes, 36, Gerard Mazza 33, and Matilda Lane-Rose, 20, arrived at O’Neill’s western suburbs home at 6.45am on August 1, 2023, intending to throw paint at the house and chain themselves to a gate to prevent O’Neill from being able to leave in opposition to the energy giant’s plans on the Burrup Peninsula.
Matilda Lane-Rose, Jesse Noakes, Gerard Mazza and Emil Davey outside court last week.Credit: Jesinta Burton
But the protest was foiled by 10 WA Police officers who were lying in wait, intervening after the group arrived and arresting them as an ABC documentary crew’s cameras rolled.
The entire incident was caught on camera by the crew of ABC’s flagship investigative program Four Corners, who had accompanied the trio as part of a story on the growing environmental movement.
A fourth co-accused, Emil Davey, was arrested at his home a short time later.
The court previously heard the activists had been captured on CCTV scoping out the premises 72 hours before the planned protest, and had purchased four litres of yellow paint to pour into balloons, two buckets and three yellow spray cans.
And Davey had a run-in with undercover cops while driving by the home 24 hours before the protest, with the court previously told he had been held up at gun point.
O’Neill later took out violence restraining orders against all four defendants, branding the incident “extreme”.
Lane-Rose and Davey each received a $2000 fine and a spent conviction for their involvement in the foiled plot, while Noakes received a $2500 fine.
Mazza is due to be sentenced on February 24.
In handing down the sentence, magistrate Steven Heath said that while taking the protest to O’Neill’s home could be seen as a personal attack, the plot did not involve causing extensive damage to the premises or cause disruption to the wider public.
Heath also recognised the democratic right to protest as being a pillar of democracy.
Lawyers for all four defendants had previously told the court the offending was “at the lower end” and worthy only of a small fine, pointing out that the protest was interrupted and maintaining that their conduct was motivated by genuinely held concerns about climate change.
