Three fined after This is Rigged red paint protest at Scottish Parliament building

Calum Marshall, 26, Emily Milligan and Louis Wombacher-Hadden, both 21, vandalised the front of the iconic Edinburgh building by using fire extinguishers full of paint during a protest over food poverty earlier this year.

The three eco-activists from the This Is Rigged organisation also daubed slogans on the ground and displayed banners that read “1 in 4 Scots” and “Hunger is a political choice”.

This Is Rigged vowed to continue the protests until supermarkets reduce the price of baby formula to March 2021 prices and the Scottish Government funds the rollout of community food hubs for every 500 households in Scotland.

The trio vandalised the front of the iconic Edinburgh building by using fire extinguishers full of paint during a protest over food poverty earlier this year. | Alex Lawrie

Following the trio’s arrest, a press release stated: “There has been an increase in Victorian-era diseases such as malnutrition, scurvy and rickets, diseases which can easily be eradicated and prevented with easy access to food. Babies will not be fed properly when baby formula prices go up and the products are security tagged because supermarkets care more about their profits than poor mothers stealing formula for their starving babies.”

Marshall and Milligan, both from Edinburgh, and Wombacher-Hadden, from Tyberton, Herefordshire, appeared at the capital’s sheriff court on Friday where they pleaded guilty to maliciously spraying paint on the building and property on March 11 this year.

They all had not guilty pleas accepted by the Crown to culpably and recklessly climbing onto the parliament’s roof to the danger of lieges during the same incident.

Sheriff Iain Nicol ordered all three of the protestors to each pay a compensation order of £879 to cover the cost of the clean up operation. Marshall was also fined £695 and Milligan, a hospitality worker, and Wombacher-Hadden, a gardener, were both sentenced to pay a fine of £560 as punishment for the vandalism attack.