Just Stop Oil: Protesters in their 80s use hammer and chisel to ‘break’ glass around Magna Carta - watch below

Video footage shows the moment two Just Stop Oil protesters in their 80s used a hammer and chisel to try and ‘break’ the glass case around the Magna Carta.

Just Stop Oil said Reverend Dr Sue Parfitt, 82, an Anglican priest, and Judy Bruce, 85, a retired biology teacher, ‘smashed’ the glass case around the manuscript at the British Library in London. One protester held up a sign which read: “The government is breaking the law”. The protesters then reportedly glued themselves to the glass case.

The Magna Carta, issued in 1215, was the first document to put into writing the principle that the King and his government were not above the law. The British Library said that the damage to the glass case was minimal and the Magna Carta is undamaged.

Protester Reverend Dr Sue Parfitt said:

“The Magna Carta is rightly revered, being of great importance to our history, to our freedoms and to our laws. But there will be no freedom, no lawfulness, no rights, if we allow climate breakdown to become the catastrophe that is now threatened.”