the times | Saturday September 5 2020 2GM 37
News
The first black scientist invited to give
one of the Royal Institution’s Christmas
lectures is reporting a hate crime to the
Metropolitan Police after he was racial-
ly abused online.
Chris Jackson, a professor of geology
at Imperial College London, has been
targeted since his role was announced
last month. The abuse included a clip,
sent privately on Twitter, of a black per-
son being beaten, he told The Times.
Professor Jackson, whose lecture will
focus on how the geological record can
Faraday presenting the first. In 1994 the
first female lecturer, Baroness Green-
field, was invited. Until 2015, when Dr
Kevin Fong gave the lectures, all had
been presented by white scientists.
Professor Jackson, 43, hopes that his
talk inspires people from all back-Black scientist reports racial abuse to police after lecture honour
show how the Earth’s climate has
changed over millions of years, said
that he had been prepared for abuse. “It
will probably be worse at or around the
time the [lecture] is aired,” he said.
He decided to make the attacks
public to show what people of colour
must often put up with on social media
and other forums. “I’ve managed to
attract a decent amount of [abuse] from
racist people,” he said. “You know, these
people would never come up to me in a
bar and say these things... because
they’re all cowards.”
Lucinda Hunt, the institution’s di-rector, said that Professor Jackson had
been subjected to shocking abuse.
“We’re supporting Chris and we hope
everyone will recognise that as a black
man in science, he represents just some
of the diversity of people in Stem
[science, technology, enginering and
mathematics]. We are pleased to reflect
that diversity in the lectures and to
highlight Chris’s excellence to our
young viewers.”
Professor Jackson is one of three pre-
senters of this year’s lectures, titled
Planet Earth: A User’s Guide. The
lectures began in 1825 with Michaelgrounds. “When you speak to adults,
especially people of colour, who be-
come scientists and ask them how they
got to that point, a large number of
people say that they were inspired by
somebody who looked like them, or
somebody from the same background
as them,” he said. “I’m black but I’m also
working class — and I hope working-
class white people will identify with me,
irrespective of race.”
He will present the lectures along-
side Dr Helen Czerski, a physicist at
University College London, and Dr
Tara Shine, an environmental scientist.Rhys Blakely Science Correspondent Chris Jackson‘s
presentation
will be about
climate changeYCL£500k watch
stolen in raid
on Ecclestone
ex-husband
David Brown
Extinction Rebellion formed blockades
at key printing sites last night saying
that it was attempting to stop national
newspapers from being distributed to
the public.
Dozens of protesters were blocking
roads leading to printworks used by
News UK, publisher of The Times and
The Sun, in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire,
and Knowsley, Merseyside. The sites
also print other newspapers including
The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
It was unclear last night how many
copies of the papers would get out.
Protesters were also blockading a site
in Holytown, near Motherwell, to dis-
rupt the distribution of The Scottish Sun.
Extinction Rebellion said that its
activists were using bamboo to lock
themselves to vehicles in the roads to
try to keep the titles from newsstands.
In a statement, the group said that it
was “using disruption to expose the fail-
ure of these corporations to accurately
report on the climate and ecological
emergency”.
Tobias Ellwood, a Tory MP and
chairman of the defence select commit-
Extinction Rebellion activists
block newspaper printing sites
tee, said: “Once again, Extinction Re-
bellion’s actions in breaking the law and
causing such disruption will alienate
more people who otherwise might be
sympathetic to their views on climate
change.”
Earlier yesterday, Rupert Read, an
Extinction Rebellion leader, said that
“parasitic” hard-left groups were trying
to piggyback on climate protests to
further political causes. Mr Read said
that the climate action group was in-
creasingly aware of groups including
the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
and Young Communist League
(YCL) seeking to further their
own aims through Extinc-
tion Rebellion, which has a
strict policy of being apoliti-
cal.
It came on the first day of a
ten-day demonstration orga-
nised by the group in London,
Manchester and Cardiff.
Extinction Rebellionissued a statement disavowing social-
ism after accusations by Tory MPs and
commentators that it had become a
vehicle for the hard-left. That, in turn,
prompted a backlash from within the
organisation, with several regional
branches and the youth wing saying
that they rejected it. The rift developed
after members of the YCL, the youth
wing of the Communist Party of Brit-
ain, were photographed at an Extinc-
tion Rebellion protest in Parliament
Square holding a banner that read
“Socialism not extinction” alongside
a hammer and sickle.
An article in Challenge, the
group’s official magazine, stat-
ed that “the presence of YCL
members at the demonstra-
tion was... not to support XR
[Extinction Rebellion] orga-
nisationally but to propagan-
dise for socialism.”
The SWP, a Trotskyite
party, has
encouraged its
members to at-
tend the pro-
tests and re-
cruitmentstalls have appeared at demonstrations.
The party, which was also accused of at-
tempting to hijack Black Lives Matter
protests this summer, is claimed to have
sent an email to its members last year
telling them to join Extinction Reb-
ellion to further their own aims.
Mr Read told The Times: “Any parasit-
ical organisation that is trying to use XR
is worrying, and I’m sure there are
groups trying to infiltrate us.” He
stressed that Extinction Rebellion be-
longed to no single ideology and was
committed to demanding that the gov-
ernment hold citizens’ assemblies to de-
cide policy.
Yesterday the group’s protesters tar-
geted the Bank of England and the
Home Office. So far, more than 500
people have been arrested in London
since Tuesday.
The group is demanding that MPs
adopt what activists are calling the “cli-
mate and ecological emergency bill”
backed by Caroline Lucas, the Green
Party MP, that seeks to bind the gov-
ernment to its Paris Agreement com-
mitments on climate change.
Neither the SWP nor YCL responded
to a request for comment.Greg Wilford, Tom Ball
Members of the Young Communist League linked the climate fight to the cause of socialism at an Extinction Rebellion protest in Parliament Square, central London
Rupert Read said
“I’m sure there
are groups trying
to infiltrate us”A former gold bullion tycoon has
described being pistol-whipped by
armed men who burst into his London
apartment and stole a £500,000 watch.
James Stunt was at home with his 24-
year-old girlfriend in South Kensington
when he was attacked on Thursday.
Mr Stunt, 38, the former husband of
Petra Ecclestone, the Formula One
heiress, posted a photograph on Insta-
gram of blood streaming down his face
from a deep cut above his nose.
He wrote: “3 thugs with guns broke
into my house and pistolwhipped me
with a gun.” He was taken to hospital
and received stitches.
He later claimed that “the police are
treating me like a criminal” but it is
understood that Scotland Yard is in-
vestigating the robbery.
Mr Stunt claimed that the raiders
had “planted things” but he was “far
from scared”. He has claimed that he is
the victim of a conspiracy.
Mr Stunt said that the robbers were
hooded and armed with guns with
silencers and threatened his girlfriend,
Helena Robinson.
“These three knocked me senseless
and pointed a gun at a 24-year-old girl’s
head,” he said.
The Audemars Piguet watch taken
from his wrist was the only one he had
left following an earlier burglary at
another home, he said. It is covered by
a proceeds of crime restraint order pro-
hibiting disposal of assets obtained by
the Crown Prosecution Service.
Mr Stunt and Ms Ecclestone, 31, were
married in 2011. A petrol bomb was
thrown at their £66 million London
mansion in May 2016. The couple
divorced in 2017.
Mr Stunt has been the victim of a
series of alleged crimes including the
theft of a diamond worth £515,000 dur-
ing a £20 million burglary of his man-
sion in Belgravia, west London, in
December 2017.
Mr Stunt was once worth an estimat-
ed £3 billion but was declared bankrupt
last June and in March this year his
£11 million home in Belgravia was re-
possessed along with two £5 million
apartments in Chelsea.
He was charged with money laun-
dering and forgery in May following a
police investigation into a gold trading
business in what he described as “the
biggest fit up”. Mr Stunt denies any
criminality and is contesting the
charges.
Ms Ecclestone is now engaged to
Sam Palmer, 37, a former electrician.
They live in a 17,000sq ft house in Los
Angeles, having downsized from an $85
million, 123-room home.