A court case against Daniel Knorr, a 21 year old biochemistry student at Oxford University, has been dropped. Apprehended last Tuesday for vandalising the Radcliffe Camera, Knorr was arrested in April for conspiracy to cause criminal damage to the Dippy exhibit in Coventry.
Dippy, described as “the nation’s favourite dinosaur” is a beloved plaster-of-paris Diplodocus replica that was donated to the London Museum of Natural History in 1905. Recently, it has been on a tour of the nation’s museums, with its current tenure at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry set to continue until 2025.
Representing Just Stop Oil, the activists breached security, revealed message-bearing t-shirts before being arrested. On 6 October, whilst in court at the Warwickshire Justice Centre for a pre-trial hearing, Knorr and Victoria, 67, from Leamington Spa, were informed that the case had been dropped on the grounds that the prosecution could not find sufficient evidence.
Just Stop Oil is a British environmental activism group, which uses civil disobedience, direct action, vandalism and traffic obstruction. The group aims to commit the government to ending all new licensing and production of fossil fuels.
Following the case’s dismissal, Knorr said that “any prosecution of nonviolent demonstrators is a waste of time and money.”
He also levelled criticism at the British judicial system, saying: “people are dying every day, and the courts are more concerned with being good bureaucrats than they are with saving lives.
“It’s time for those in positions of power to accept their responsibility and pick a side – the side of life.”
Knorr was previously convicted for aggravated trespass, after throwing orange powder onto the pitch at a test match at Lord’s, along with two other Just Stop Oil activists.
Representing a species that fell victim to mass extinction, Dippy was a crucial symbol in the protestors’ plea. Knorr said, “the dinosaurs had no choice about extinction but we do!”
The case’s dismissal comes as the UK government announced more than 100 new north sea oil and gas licences in July, something that the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, described as “moral and economic madness.”
