Vincent McAviney: UK correspondent on the group of Just Stop Oil activists that were arrested at Heathrow Airport

A group of 10 Just Stop Oil activists have been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of attempting to interfere with operations.

The group were quickly detained and taken into custody after members had hinted they were planning an 'uprising'.

UK correspondent Vincent McAviney says the group may have been planning to glue themselves to the tarmac to directly stop flights from departing one of the world's busiest airports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Vincent mcavinie is our UK correspondent this evening, Evincent.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Do we know yet why that guy stabbed the British
Army officer?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
No, we don't know yet. This was a British Army
officer who has stabbed near his barracks in Kent on Tuesday.
We are told in hospital that he is in a
serious but stable condition. He was in his uniform. He's
in his forties and he was attacked and near his home.
A twenty four year old man has been arrested on
suspicion of attempted murder. There were lots of public witnesses

(00:31):
to this. It was a pretty horrific incident. He was
stabbed multiple times. It's not entirely sure, but the police
say they are exploring the possibility of a mental health
related offense crisis as it were.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right, listen, what were these just stop oil activists
doing at the airport?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, he Throw airport is not only Briton's but Europe's
busiest airport as well, and just off Boyle of course,
have been trying to do direct action protests for some
time and they were arrested a group of ten of
them at Heathrow where they were detained near the airport
and taken into custody on suspicion of conspiring to interfere
with a site of key national infrastructure under the Public

(01:11):
Order Act. So what they think is going to happen
was they were going to do something to try and
disrupt directly the grounds the two runways. They're perhaps breaking
through the fences and then trying, as we've seen with
other protests around the world, to sort of glue themselves
or attach themselves to runways to try and stop the
flights of the planes. But this happens after a number
of Just Stop Oil protesters received pretty strong prison sentences

(01:35):
long jail terms for five members of that group, sentences
of four and five years for disrupting the M twenty
five motorway back in twenty twenty two, which has led
to some shock in the group about how strong the
justice system has come down on them.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
That makes me more happy than I can tell you.
That they are shots. They're getting in trouble from a
pr perspective, and so why do these people keep doing this?
I mean they are not winning friends.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, they're not on Some say they're sort of hurting
the group, I think, especially earlier this summer when the
group broke through and spray painted Stonehenge. They used what
they said was the non damaging sort of concoction of
paint and powder to spray it, but many people were
completely alarmed by that. In fact, a Japanese tourist that
was there just simply ran over and tried to pull
them off. And though the paint has washed off, there

(02:22):
was a sort of special kind of a fauna that
is on the stones that scientists did think might have
been damaged by the spray, but it completely backfired on them.
There wasn't anyone that was thought it was a good
idea to go to such a sensitive site and trying
to face it like that.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
No too right, Hey, listen, this is quite said, so
Andy Murray, that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
This is it the Paris Olympics. I will be there
from this weekend, hopefully see him playing on a Monday. Actually,
if he manages to get through to the second round.
After a two decades long professional tennis career, it is
going to be his final professional tournament. He's played in
all the Olympics since Beijing. He's won gold medals and
it's somewhere that he's always clearly you know, sometimes some

(03:03):
professional sorts people don't really like Olympics, but he's always
seemed to really enjoy it, and it will be the
end of his career. After he lost outs in Wimbledon recently,
he was playing in the doubles with his brother. He
was going to play in the mixed levels with Heed
around a Carnu and then she called time on that
because of an injury. But no, this will be his
sort of final swan song, and everyone here in Europe

(03:25):
getting pretty excited about the prospect of those Olympics kicking
off tomorrow, the big opening ceremony on the Sene River
as well, unlike any that's been attempted before, big security
concerns for it, but if they pull it off, it
could be pretty spectacular. And rumors as well of some
of the acts being spotted in the city. Lady Gaga
is thought to be performing, and Celine Dion as well,

(03:45):
her first performance in years as she recovers or attempts
to sort of get back to some form of normality
from her stiff person syndrome that she has been suffering from.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Vincent, thank you appreciate it. You're off there very shortly,
if not tomorrow, So go well and enjoy it that
It's Vincent Macaviinney, a UK corresponds.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
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