An activist from Penryn is among three Just Stop Oil activists who have been banned from protesting in London pending their trial for allegedly throwing soup over two Vincent Van Gogh paintings.

Phillipa Green, aged 24, from Penryn, Cornwall has been charged alongside Stephen Simpson, aged 71, and Mary Somerville, aged 77.

It is alleged they threw canned Heinz soup over the artist’s Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888 at the National Gallery in London on September 27, Southwark Crown Court heard.

The incident came just hours after fellow Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced at the same court for throwing tomato soup over the latter artwork in October 2022. 

Simpson, of Shipley, West Yorkshire and Somerville, of Bradford, West Yorkshire appeared alongside Green in court on Monday charged with two counts each of damaging the frames of Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.

Simpson and Somerville, who appeared court in person, and Green, who appeared remotely from Stratford Magistrates’ Court, all pleaded not guilty to the charges and were released on conditional bail pending their trial on January 5, 2026.

Just Stop Oil activists Mary Somerville, Stephen Simpson and Phillipa Green pictured previously, leaving Westminster Magistrates' Court in September (Image: Ben Whitley/PA) Judge Alexander Milne banned the three defendants from taking part in protest action within the M25 until the date of their trial.

The defendants’ lawyer, Raj Chada, argued the ban was a “disproportional” infringement on their right to protest because London is “the seat of government”.

 Judge Milne said: “The application of the defendants’ right to protest is a relative one – and there seems to be a great deal of blurring between the exercise of that right and the commission of criminal offences.

“This court is not banning them from lawful protest anywhere else in the UK, but I will ban them from participating in any protest within the M25.”

A pre-trial review hearing is due to take place at the same court on November 24 next year.