Five climate change activists from a group planning to shut down Heathrow Airport with drones have been arrested.
Campaigners from Heathrow Pause – a splinter of environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion – have vowed to cause mass disruption on Friday by flying toy drones within the 5km exclusion zone around the airport.
The stunt – which is intended to ground hundreds of flights – is part of a bid by the group to halt the planned expansion of Heathrow Airport, which includes a third runway.
The group also want to put pressure on the government to reduce carbon emissions.
But in a statement on Thursday, Heathrow Pause said two of its prospective drone pilots – Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam and Mike Lynch-White – had been arrested.
According to the group, the pair were arrested while being interviewed at a cafe in Bethnal Green.
“Prospective drone pilots Roger Hallam and Mike Lynch-White have just been preemptively arrested and we caught it all on film,” they said on Twitter.
“The pair were just concluding an interview with German news magazine der Spiegel at Billy’s Cafe in Bethnal Green when four police cars pulled up.
“Officers handcuffed the Pause activists, placed them in separate cars and drove them away.”
The Met Police said it had arrested five people in total – three men and two women – on suspicion “of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance in relations to operations at Heathrow Airport”.
Two men were arrested in Bethnal Green, police said, while two women and a man were also arrested in north London. They have all been taken to a police station in the capital.
Deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor, said: “We have carried out these arrests today in response to proposed plans for illegal drone use near Heathrow Airport which protest group Heathrow Pause have said will take place tomorrow morning.
“Our policing plan is aimed at preventing criminal activity which poses a significant safety and security risk to the airport, and the thousands of passengers that will be using it. We have warned previously that arrests would be made if this activity continued.”
The arrests are a “proportionate response” to the plans, he added.
“We remain fully prepared for the planned protest tomorrow, and will work quickly to identify criminal activity and arrest anyone committing offences.”