Seven Extinction Rebellion fanatics have been fined £250 each today – with six ordered to pay a further £150 – for attempting to protest a Dundee drilling rig last year, only for their dinghy to sink and the authorities having to fish them out of the freezing water. An incident which cost the police, the coastguard, the RNLI (and ultimately, the taxpayer) upwards of £30,000…

The £250 penalties handed out at Dundee Sheriff Court today will be paid to the RNLI, with the additional £150 fines going back into the public purse – a grand total of just £2,650, only £27,350 short of the total bill racked up last year. Sheriff Grant McCulloch, who handed out the measly punishment, said:

“I can understand the temptation to do things that cause maximum interference to daily public life. The flip side is, if you go too far, you endanger yourself and others and that is what happened here.”

The protest, which involved scaling the 300ft heights of the rig, was planned to last an entire week. In the end, it fell apart after a few hours. The solicitor representing the activists said “I put that down to youth and inexperience”…