The Reverend Sue Parfitt, a retired priest from Bristol, faces the possibility of serving up to ten years in prison. At 82, she may not be the first person you’d expect to be found sitting in the middle of the road, blocking the traffic. But Parfitt has been arrested nearly 30 times for protesting to raise awareness about the climate crisis.
On 10 May this year, she walked into the British Library with a fellow protestor, Judith Bruce, and attacked the vitrine protecting the Magna Carta with a hammer. Photos of Parfitt wearing a dog collar and black cassock and holding up a sign saying ‘the government is breaking the law’ travelled around the world.
“It is probably the action I am most pleased to have been associated with,” says Parfitt, who is a member of an activist group called Christian Climate Action. “The connection between what we did and the cause of the protest was so direct. That week the High Court found the government was breaking the law over its inadequate climate policies. It was fitting to be standing by the foundational document of our constitution, which says that the government is not above the law.”
A rash of attention-grabbing stunts by climate protesters targeting heritage and art prompted the National Museum Directors’ Council to write an open letter in October. “Whilst we respect the right for people to protest, and are often sympathetic to the cause, these attacks have to stop,” the letter declared. “They are hugely damaging to the reputation of UK museums and cause enormous stress for colleagues at every level of an organisation, along with visitors who now no longer feel safe visiting the nation’s finest museums and galleries.”
The same month, London’s National Gallery announced a ban on liquids after five separate attacks on art—most recently in September, when two Just Stop Oil activists hurled tomato soup at two Sunflowers works by Vincent van Gogh. The gallery has warned that the new security restrictions may lengthen visitor waiting times at the entrance.
Parfitt says she visited the British Library ten days before her protest there to ensure that the action would not inflict any permanent damage on the Magna Carta. “The document is kept in two layers of reinforced glass casing,” she explains. “It was only the outer case that we intended to damage, and we succeeded in only making three small nicks.” The British Library has confirmed that the charter was unharmed.
“It was hugely successful in getting an enormous amount of publicity, which is the purpose behind all climate protests, given the refusal of the press to do justice to the incontrovertible science of the impending catastrophe and the government failing to act quickly enough to mitigate it,” she says.
Asked whether museums and cultural institutions are the right target for such protests given that their focus—in common with groups such as Just Stop Oil—is on protecting shared resources for future generations, Parfitt acknowledges the paradox but argues: “The campaign is highlighting the fact that there won’t be any cultural artefacts to leave, and there won’t be any future generations to leave them to, if we don’t turn this crisis around and at least mitigate some of its worst effects.”
Parfitt’s four-day trial is scheduled for January 2026. Her maximum punishment would be ten years in prison. In September, two activists from Just Stop Oil who threw tomato soup at a Van Gogh in the National Gallery in October 2022 were sentenced to 27 months and 20 months respectively.
“I am quite relaxed about going to prison and imagine it may happen at some point,” Parfitt says. “I see it as something I am able to do at my age, having no dependants and no other obligations that would prevent me. All of the climate protests I do are in obedience to what I perceive to be God’s calling to me. Putting my body on the line is the only action I can do that is remotely commensurate with the gravity of the climate crisis. Compared with that, the legal consequences to me seem small indeed.”
One consequence of her protest at the British Library—which, she says, does upset her—is that the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Revd Vivienne Faull, will not renew Parfitt’s permission to officiate as a priest in the Church of England as a result of the ongoing court proceedings.
“It’s quite a big deal to have one’s licence removed at any age, and I shall grieve for not being able to celebrate the Eucharist in particular,” Parfitt says. She views the Church as “siding with other institutions in its efforts to silence climate protest, instead of leading the way in highlighting the catastrophe we face. It’s shameful.”
A spokesperson said by email that the diocese of Bristol supported urgent action on climate change, but declined to say whether Parfitt will have her licence to officiate as a Church of England priest reinstated if she is acquitted.
