Oscar-Winning Actress Had Manure Sprayed at Her During Anti-Fracking Protest

Jack Phillips
4/28/2016
Updated:
4/28/2016

Emma Thompson, the Oscar-winning actress, was sprayed with manure during an anti-fracking protest.

She set up a “bake off” against fracking in Lancashire on Wednesday.

Before she did it, Thompson explained to a police officer that she will make a solar-powered cake and a wind-powered cake.

“For almost five years, Lancashire has been in the midst of a battle to stop the shale gas industry,” she wrote for Greenpeace. “And despite huge local opposition, fracking firm Cuadrilla is determined to set up its rigs and drill.”

British actress Emma Thompson (C) and John Sauven from Greenpeace join an estimated 40,000 thousand people marching from the Embankment via Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament in London in 2014.  (AP Photo/Greenpeace International, John Cobb)
British actress Emma Thompson (C) and John Sauven from Greenpeace join an estimated 40,000 thousand people marching from the Embankment via Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament in London in 2014.  (AP Photo/Greenpeace International, John Cobb)

However, her group didn’t have permission to be on the land. The farmer who leases the land at Preston New Road near Blackpool drove a tractor to the makeshift tent and hit the crew with manure.

Apparently, Emma and her sister, Sophie Thompson, didn’t get sprayed.

“I was livid when I heard about the Government’s plans to frack under national parks,” she told The Metro. “To prop up their half-baked energy policies they may force fracking onto reluctant local communities.”

“This must be challenged. We have to show fracking will scar our countryside and fuel yet more climate change.”

“And what better way to do that in Britain than hold a Bake-Off?”

Energy company Cuadrilla said it’s reviewing whether to take action.

“Celebrities from London trespassing on a Lancashire farmers land, preventing him from working whilst lecturing us on where the UK should get our natural gas from is beyond ridiculous,” Francis Egan, Cuadrilla chief executive, said, according to the Telegraph.

(H/T - IJreview)

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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