A Swindon activist has been fined after he was found guilty of gluing himself to the frame of a copy of a Leonardo da Vinci painting.

Tristan Strange was one of five Just Stop Oil activists who carried out the demonstration at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on July 5, 2022.

They were ordered to pay £486 each for criminal damage at City of London Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

Speaking outside court, one of Strange's co-defendants, Simon Bramwell, said that he believed da Vinci would have approved of their protest.

Bramwell told reporters that their convictions and fines would not deter them from taking part in future protests, because “the planet is f***ed”, and he believes da Vinci would have supported them.

He said: “I am confident that if Leonardo da Vinci were looking down on us, he would 100% agree with what we’ve done.

“He was quoted saying that ‘nature never breaks her own laws’. But we are breaking nature’s laws every day and as a result we’re killing the planet.”

When asked whether he was disappointed with the outcome of their case, he said: “I’m always disappointed because once again the law is failing the people of Britain, the law is failing the planet.

“As regards to this particular case, we do what we believe we have to do according to our consciences, and according to the hard science.

“We have to take the knocks along with that – the law is not going to change overnight.

“As regards what we did in consideration of the judge, he was fair in his remit as it were (but) we need the judiciary to start taking some large risks.

“We need them to start realising that the laws we have at the moment in this country are hostage to things like Big Oil and aren’t protecting everybody.”

District Judge William Nelson told the court that Jessica Agar, 22, Simon Bramwell, 50, Caspar Hughes, 51, Lucy Porter, 47 and Tristan Strange, 40, caused £180 of damage, while leading the venue to close for the day.

All five defendants glued their hands to the painting’s border, while Hughes previously admitted spraying “No New Oil” on a wall beneath the artwork.

District Judge Nelson told the central London court that the “primary cause” of their protest “was to gain media attention and not to cause damage to a work of art”.

However, he agreed with prosecutor Robert Simpson’s argument that the protesters were “reckless” in that they knew damage to the frame would be a “by-product” of their actions.

The judge described their case as “unusual” because all of the witnesses, including the defendants, were “credible” and had given “detailed” accounts of the large amount of planning which went into their protest.

District Judge Nelson added that the defendants “took efforts to minimise the damage they would cause” by experimenting with gluing themselves to different types of wood beforehand, and using soluble spray paint.

They also targeted the Royal Academy of Arts because it had lower footfall than other galleries which would minimise the risk of “things getting out of control”, he said.

Bramwell, of Twyford, Berkshire; Hughes, of Exeter, Devon; and Porter, of Malvern, Worcestershire, attended the second day of their trial, while Agar, of Royston, Hertfordshire; and Strange of Swindon appeared via videolink.

They said the aim of their gallery protest had been to put pressure on the Government to halt new oil and gas licences in the UK and to encourage the directors, employees and members of art institutions to join JSO protests.

Da Vinci created The Last Supper in the 1490s, and the RA’s full-size copy of it was painted by one or more of his pupils.