Eco-zealot arrested as she tried to confront Sir David Attenborough as he ate in fish restaurant

A climate change protester has been arrested for trying to confront Sir David Attenborough as he dined at a Michelin-starred fish restaurant.

Emma Smart, an activist for the campaign group Animal Rebellion, allegedly caused a disturbance at the Catch at the Old Fish Market in Weymouth, Dorset.

She was asked to leave the venue before being dragged out and detained by police.

Mrs Smart, 45, approached Sir David’s table and tried to deliver a letter to him and have a five-minute chat about ‘telling the truth’ about climate change.

She added: ‘We don’t need another documentary series showing us that we are losing, some 150 species going extinct globally every single day. What we need is action.’

Sir David, 96, had spent Thursday in the harbour town of Weymouth to film a TV documentary about fishing and went to the nearby restaurant in the evening.

A climate change protester has been arrested for trying to confront Sir David Attenborough as he dined at a Michelin-starred fish restaurant

Sir David, 96, had spent Thursday in the harbour town of Weymouth to film a TV documentary about fishing and went to the nearby restaurant in the evening

Emma Smart, 45, previously came under fire when it was revealed she and her partner Andy drove 80,975 miles visiting 50 countries in 858 days in an 18-year-old Toyota from 2012 to 2016

Mrs Smart, an activist for the campaign group Animal Rebellion, allegedly caused a disturbance at the Catch at the Old Fish Market in Weymouth, Dorset

Mrs Smart was previously imprisoned over an Insulate Britain climate protest. Pictured: The Catch at the Old Fish Market in Dorset

Mrs Smart previously came under fire when it was revealed she and her partner Andy drove 80,975 miles visiting 50 countries in 858 days in an 18-year-old Toyota from 2012 to 2016.

She was also given four-month sentence for Insulate Britain’s M25 stunt in October 2021 and went on hunger strike in April following a protest with 24 fellow scientists at the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

In a statement later released by Smart through Animal Rebellion, she said she targeted the restaurant as its ‘expensive menu was a symbol of excess and inequality.’

Mrs Smart said: ‘The Catch is a symbol of excess and inequality in today’s world, Weymouth has average wages amongst the lowest in the UK and is at huge risk of sea level rises.

‘Yet this restaurant still continues business as usual amongst the worst cost-of-living crisis many will ever experience.

‘Sir David is in a unique position to tell the truth about the biodiversity crisis.

‘He has the chance to leave a legacy of love, care, and of being the forerunner of a better world.’

Dorset Police said Mrs Smart, from Weymouth, was arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance and refusing to comply with officers after they asked her to leave the restaurant.

She was asked to leave the venue before being dragged out and detained by police

Mrs Smart approached Sir David’s table and tried to deliver a letter to him and have a five minute chat about ‘telling the truth’ about climate change

In a statement later released by Smart through Animal Rebellion, she said she targeted the restaurant as its ‘expensive menu was a symbol of excess and inequality’

Dorset Police said Mrs Smart, from Weymouth, was arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance and refusing to comply with officers after they asked her to leave the restaurant

She was charged with failing to comply with a Section 35 direction and will appear at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court next month.

According to Animal Rebellion it is a group calling for a plant-based food system and a mass re-wilding programme.

Mrs Smart’s letter to the climate documentary presenter read: ‘Dear David, I still want to meet you!

‘I’m from Weymouth – my community will be devastated in the climate crisis.

‘Today is the one year anniversary that I went to prison for peacefully protesting government inaction.

‘There are 35 ordinary people in prison right now for environmental protest.

‘Please speak up for them. For all life on earth.

‘I’m a scientist. A biologist. Please meet with me – just five min.’

Mrs Smart was previously imprisoned over an Insulate Britain climate protest.

During her time in HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey, she was moved to the hospital wing after undertaking a hunger strike over her sentence. She was released in January.

She was handed a four-month sentence for taking part in a protest on October 8, 2021 on the M25, which brought Britain’s motorways to a standstill.  

Insulate Britain eco mob’s Emma Smart, 44 urged more eco-zealots to step up and continue the group’s extreme campaign

Ms Smart went on a hunger strike last year after she was given a four-month sentence for protests on the M25 with Insulate Britain 

Smart (top row, middle) posed with eight other Insulate Britain eco-zealots outside the High Court after they were jailed for the group’s motorway stunts that caused chaos for Brits in 2021

Smart, an ecologist by trade, said: ‘It was quite an extreme campaign, you know, going onto the motorway but we’re in an extreme situation and I felt I had to do what was necessary.

‘I stepped up, we all need to step up. Non-violent civil disobedience is the only way we’re going to enact change.

‘We don’t need nine of us, or 20 of us in prison, we all need to put our liberty on the line because we are facing losing everything.’

Following two months of repeated motorway chaos caused by Insulate Britain, Smart told the High Court that she was there to ‘ensure future survival’ and compared watching the climate crisis to watching a child trapped in a burning house.

‘She said: ‘I’m asking when you consider my sentence that my actions are proportionate to the crisis we are facing, where 8,500 people die a year from cold and hunger in their own homes. I cannot stand by and watch.

‘I would run to them. Our Government is betraying us, our vulnerable people and our children’s future. I will not be a bystander while our Government fails and betrays its people, I will continue to do what is necessary.’

Her prison sentence for the M25 climate change stunt came after revelations that the protester had embarked on an 81,000 mile trip around the world in a diesel-fuelled Toyota in May 2021. 

She and her partner Andy drove 80,975 miles visiting 50 countries in 858 days in an 18-year-old Toyota from 2012 to 2016. 

The couple broke their global trip into four phases and regularly blogged about their travels inside their 4×4.

Emma Smart (second from left), 44, was charged with obstructing traffic in Weymouth and Dorchester and was also pictured among the eco protesters blocking the roads near the M25 at Dartford

The couple broke their global trip into four phases and the first leg of their trip saw them to, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Pictured: Ms Shaw’s full trip from 2012-2016

Ms Shaw and Insulate Britain protesters blocked a roundabout at a junction on the M25 on October 13, 2021

The former biologist was pictured with climate change demonstrators blocking the M25 at junction 31 last year

The first leg of their trip saw them travel to France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine and Poland.

This was followed by visits to Portugal, Morocco, Western Sahara, Spain and Andorra.

Ahead of the trip Ms Smart told the BBC that it had taken ’18 months of planning and saving’ and ‘working extremely hard’ for it to go ahead. 

But she came under fire on social media for what some saw as ‘hypocrisy’. 

One person tweeted: ”This is one of the #InsulateBritain protestors Emma Smart who felt “compelled” to stop traffic on the M25 this morning…hypocrisy at its very finest! 81k miles the trip!’

The activist justified the trip by saying she and her partner would produce ’62 per cent less CO2 per day’ travelling compared with living in their shared house of four back in the UK.