Pensioner arrested after climbing on train for 83rd birthday

A pensioner celebrated his 83rd birthday by climbing on top of a train and eating a sandwich before being arrested.

Phil Kingston clambered onto the roof of the DLR train in Canary Wharf with other Extinction Rebellion protesters and tucked into his breakfast shortly after 7am.

He was part of a group called Christian Climate Action who waved a banner saying ‘business as usual = death’ and ‘don’t jail the canaries’ as they took to the station during rush hour.

Mr Kingston, a retired parole officer, of Patchway, Gloucestershire, said: ‘I take action for my grandchildren.

‘I love them so much and it breaks my heart the thought of the world we are leaving them’.

Mr Kingston said he kept trying to get arrested because he has ‘little to lose’ having worked his whole life.

He added that he encouraged his ‘fellow elders’ to join him, reported BristolLive.

The former Bristol University lecturer and church-goer compared his actions to movements such as the Suffragettes and Civil Rights movements.

He told the site: ‘It’s harder for young people, a criminal record or arrest might prevent them getting certain jobs, but us retired folk have nothing to be scared of on that front.

‘And what better reason to get arrested than trying to make the world a better place.’

Ladders, ropes and harnesses were used by British Transport Police officers to guide the protesters down from the train.

The five protesters were arrested on suspicion of obstructing the railway.

Mr Kingston said during his protest: ‘I’m here because I have a belief that there is something greater than us, which tells me that we don’t own this earth.

‘The current economy is now using 1.7 earths and we as the human population are being told this is a way of life, it’s not, it’s a way of death.

‘Because the more we take the less there is for furture generations. For the poorest people who already have got next to nothing and the rest of others in human nature who are as important as we are.’

His arrest came as the final day of protests got underway in the capital, with one woman gluing her breasts to the road outside the Goldman Sachs offices.

Some 1,130 people have been arrested during the protests which started on April 15, with more than 10,000 police officers deployed over the ten days.