Dunbar man who vandalised Stone of Destiny case at Edinburgh Castle spared jail term

Joe Madden, 22, used a rock to vandalise the glass display cabinet housing the historic artefact in a protest over rising food prices in November 2023.

Madden, along with two other protestors, were part of a group being shown the castle’s Crown Jewel room when a tour guide heard someone shout “this is a peaceful protest”.

The three demonstrators - who are members of protest group This Is Rigged - then sprayed paint on the front of the cabinet before striking the casing with several implements. The area was immediately closed down and police were called out to deal with the protest.

Madden, from Dunbar, East Lothian, pleaded guilty on indictment to maliciously causing damage to the display case at Edinburgh Castle when he appeared at the capital’s sheriff court in December.

Joe Madden, 22, used a rock to vandalise the glass display cabinet | Alexander Lawrie

Madden returned to the dock for sentencing on Thursday where Sheriff Kenneth Campbell KC placed him on a 12 month supervision order and sentenced him to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

Defence agent Clare Ryan told the court her client had no previous convictions and now has “no interest in becoming involved in any further protests”.

The court previously heard Madden and co-accused Jamie Priest and Catriona Roberts filmed the protest and one of the group sprayed the words ‘The people are mightier than the Lord’ in Gaelic on the display case. During the incident Roberts, 22, was heard to shout: “A quarter of Scotland is living in poverty, baby products should be reduced to pre-Covid prices. There is no heritage without the people.”

The police were contacted and the protest was said to have come to a peaceful conclusion at around 10.40am on November 15, 2023.

The court heard the total cost of the damage caused by the three protestors amounted to £2,798.

Priest, 26, and Roberts, both from Glasgow, also admitted maliciously causing damage at a previous court hearing and were sentenced to a community payback order. Priest was ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work while Roberts, who had committed the offence while on bail for another matter, was given 180 hours.

Following the vandalism attack This Is Rigged released a statement that read: “We targeted the Stone of Destiny because Scotland is at a critical point in its history.

“The reality of our present day is deeply concerning: A quarter of Scotland’s population have experienced food insecurity in the past year. A thousand children were rushed to hospital with acute symptoms of malnutrition.

“Meanwhile Tesco and Sainsbury’s handed shareholders a record breaking £1.2 billion while 1.2 million Scots can’t afford to eat. This is morally unacceptable. Food is a human right, hunger is a political choice.”

The Stone of Destiny was historically used in the inauguration of Scottish monarchs but was seized by King Edward I of England and taken to London in 1296. In 1950, a group of students carried out an audacious raid to steal the stone from Westminster Abbey and return it to Scotland to try and advance the cause of independence.

The raid led to the sandstone block splitting in two and was later recovered.The Stone of Destiny was used in Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 and was also used in the coronation of the King last year. It was formally returned to Scotland in 1996 to go on display at Edinburgh Castle, but in March this year it left the capital for Perth Museum as the centrepiece of a £27 million redevelopment.