A climate change protester who climbed Big Ben dressed as Boris Johnson has avoided a jail sentence. Tree surgeon Benjamin Atkinson, 44, scaled the clock tower during an Extinction Rebellion (XR) protest in October last year. Atkinson was convicted of trespassing and sentenced him to 250 hours of unpaid work and fines of more than £800. Atkinson attended XR’s climate change protest on 18 October 2019 where he vaulted a fence and climbed scaffolding on Big Ben without a harness. He settled on a safety net and hung an LGBT rainbow banner that said “No pride on a dead planet”, and another banner that read “Citizens Assembly”, a reference to one of XR’s demands.