Ross-shire activists sentenced following June protest
Greenpeace campaigners tried to prevent the rig leaving for the North Sea
Five Greenpeace campaigners who occupied a rig in the Cromarty Firth for almost four days have been sentenced to carry out unpaid work after they pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
The three men and two women chained themselves to the TransOcean rig preventing it from being towed out to sea to a BP oil field.
Peter Chan, 50, from Reading, Andrew McParland, 52, from Surrey, and Thomas Johnstone, 35, from Wales, were ordered to complete 135 hours of unpaid work.
Joanne Paterson, 53, from Munlochy, was sentenced to 100 hours and Meena Rajput, 39, from London, sentenced to 80 hours.
The court heard that the protest led to most of the rig's 99 crew being confined to their quarters, with various emergency services called into action during the occupation.
Sentencing the group, Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov said: 'I may or may not have sympathy for your beliefs. But that is for another forum. A criminal act was committed here'
'What concerns me is that the RNLI and the coastguard were taken away from a possible legitimate emergency elsewhere'
Despite the actions of the five, the rig was eventually towed out to the North Sea.