Former Green Party leader Lucas arrested at Balcombe shale site

Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP has been arrested by police at the Cuadrilla shale oil test site near the village of Balcombe in West Sussex as protests against the nascent UK fuel hotted up today.

Lucas is understood to have been arrested with her son under Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 that refers to “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.

Lucas said: “People today, myself included, took peaceful non-violent direct action only after exhausting every other means of protest available to us. I’m in the privileged position of being able to put questions to the government directly and arrange debates in Parliament, but still ministers have refused to listen.

“Despite the opposition to fracking being abundantly clear, the government has completely ignored the views of those they are supposed to represent. When the democratic deficit is so enormous, people are left with very little option but to take peaceful, non-violent direct action.”

Earlier in the day protestors had managed to enter the Staffordshire headquarters of Cuadrilla as protests continued calling for the end to the company’s drilling in Balcombe.

Cuadrilla hit back and stated: “Protesters forced their way into our Lichfield office, harassed our staff and chained themselves to filing cabinets.”

Earlier in the day six protesters representing campaign group No Dash for Gas superglued themselves to the glass door of public relations and crisis management company Bell Pottinger to stop employees and clients entering the building.

Protesters have also gathered outside the London residence of Lord Howell today.

Howell is the father-in-law of the chancellor George Osborne, who was criticised over his statements on hydraulic fracturing for shale gas and oil, when he said the practice of fracking should be limited to the North East of England because it has “large and uninhabited and desolate areas”.