Malvern Just Stop Oil protester glues herself to The Last Supper

Lucy Porter, 47, is part of a group of five charged with causing criminal damage to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

It came as the Just Stop Oil activists staged a protest at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in Piccadilly, London, on July 5 of last year.

Giving evidence at the City of London Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, Porter said she is a “full time campaigner” who previously worked as a teacher for 20 years.

She said her co-defendants had visited the gallery to carry out a “risk assessment” before the incident, adding: “We were very careful not to do any damage to the picture at all.

“We were aware that glue we were using may leave a little bit of residue but would be quite easy to remove without causing any permanent damage.”

She said the stunt was intended to “raise awareness around the catastrophic crisis that we are facing”.

She added: “We were in no way reckless, it was a very calm and controlled protest and risk-assessed from all angles.”

Porter was joined in the protest by Jessica Agar, 22, Simon Bramwell, 50, Caspar Hughes, 51, and Tristan Strange, 40.

They have been charged with causing £180 of damage to the artwork’s frame and £539.40 to a nearby sofa.

Da Vinci created The Last Supper in the 1490s, with the painting depicting the scene when Jesus announced that one of his 12 apostles would betray him while dining with them before he was crucified.

The RA’s full-size copy of it is attributed to two of da Vinci’s pupils - Giampietrino and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio –  and is believed to be the most accurate record of the original and was painted in around 1515-20.

Martha Marriott, a registrar at the RA, said the piece was purchased for 600 guineas in 1821 “which was the most expensive painting the Royal Academy had acquired at that time”.

She said it was officially valued at £1.4 million in 2014 and that a former colleague had then revalued it at £3.6 million ahead of the trial.

Caspar Hughes admitted to spray-painting “No New Oil” in white letters on a wall under the painting, the court heard. (Image: Just Stop Oil)

At the gallery, the campaigners were calling for the Government to halt new oil and gas licences in the UK and for the directors, employees and members of art institutions to join the JSO protests.

And Hughes has admitted he spray-painted “No New Oil” in white letters on a wall under the painting, the court heard.

Payton Goodred-Vaucrosson, representing Porter, Agar and Strange, suggested the glue damage to the frame was “insignificant or trivial” and claimed a leather conservationist’s invoice for repairs to the sofa contained “a litany of issues not specific to the glue damage”.

Prosecutor Robert Simpson said: “I would suggest to you a specialist picture frame cleaner had to come along and be paid £180 for coming along to do that and I suggest damage that causes £180 to mend is by no means minimal or trivial.”

The trial is due to continue at the same court on Wednesday, February 8.