Extinction Rebellion members Annabell Gottwald, Eric Serge Herbert fined after vandalising courthouse
An Extinction Rebellion member says her 'growing desperation' over the future impacts of climate change led her to vandalise a south coast courthouse.
The South Coast News
Don't miss out on the headlines from The South Coast News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A south coast Extinction Rebellion member says her “growing desperation” over the impacts of climate change led to her conviction for vandalising a court building.
Annabell Gottwald, 26, from Tarraganda was convicted and fined $300 after pleaded guilty to affixing a placard or paper on premises without consent in Bega Local Court on September 14.
Her co-accused Eric Serge Herbert, 21, from Pelican Waters in Queensland was convicted in his absence after failing to appear in court and fined $400. He did not enter a plea.
Court documents state the pair were captured on CCTV placing an Extinction Rebellion recruitment poster on the sliding doors of the Bega Court House with glue at 7.15pm on July 20.
Police said Gottwald at one point “appears to be laughing” as the poster was placed on the door.
The documents state the pair were arrested the following day by police after a highway patrol officer recognised Herbert, who was sitting in the passenger seat of a car, from CCTV captured from the courthouse.
Police said Gottwald was recording the interaction with police on her phone, and as officers were about to leave they say they recognised her shoes as matching the other “person of interest” from the CCTV footage.
In a note to Magistrate Doug Dick, Gottwald said she had “caused no damage” and was “motivated by a total desperation about what is happening to the planet”.
In the note she asked for her charge to be dismissed by the court.
“I think that my growing desperation is both understandable and quite reasonable, highlighted clearly by the ‘code red’ warning of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to policy makers, to which Australia is a signatory,” she said.
Gottwald said she put up the poster to show her “dissent to the annihilation of our collective futures”.
“Only when every member of society, particularly those with power understand the social, economic and ecological consequences of our trajectory will we be able to act proportionately,” she said.
She told the Magistrate she would ask permission before placing up any more recruitment signs.
After court Gottwald said police and the courts “need to understand” the group aims to help society through its actions.
“We’re racing towards a future that we will be unable to mitigate or adapt to,” she said.
“Anyone who believes they can deal with this crisis on their own is at this point living a fairytale.
“We have to be more honest about what is necessary, a collective resistance against extinction, brought by the powerful against the entire natural world.”
‘Good news’ in case of trio who allegedly kidnapped, assaulted man
The case of three men accused of kidnapping and assaulting a man during a home invasion on the south coast has returned to court with “good news”.
Fight over woman ends in violent pub stabbing
A dispute over a woman reached boiling point on a night out in a south coast pub when a man got into a fight with his ex’s new boyfriend and stabbed him in the back.