Local members of the protest group Extinction Rebellion have covered the windows of Barclays on St Mary Street, Weymouth with stickers as part of a protest.
It comes after Dorchester resident Annie Webster was one of seven women to be sentenced for cracking the windows at Barclays HQ in London in April 2021.
Webster was given an 8-month suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court
At the Barclays branch in Weymouth, local residents applied stickers reading “In Case of Climate Emergency Break Glass” and read out pages from a letter written by Extinction Rebellion doctors to the board of Barclays Bank.
Local fossil fuel divestment campaigner Caz Dennett said: “It is a huge relief to learn that our friend Annie and her six courageous co-defendants are not locked up today. But it should never have come to this.
"Banks and investor institutions, particularly Barclays knowingly and irresponsibly fund de-forestation, pollution, nature loss, climate chaos, and all of it has bad outcomes for people and our planet."
This is not the first protest aimed at Barclays.
In December, Extinction Rebellion protestors staged a "mock trial" outside the Weymouth branch.
Meanwhile in London, hundreds of women dressed as Suffragettes marched over London Bridge towards Southwark Crown Court with banners and placards saying “Barclays are the Real Criminals” and “Barclays Profit while the World Burns”.
Speaking in December after a previous protest, a Barclays spokesperson said: “We are determined to play our part in addressing the urgent and complex challenge of climate change.
"In March 2020 we were one of the first banks to set an ambition to become net zero by 2050, across all of our direct and indirect emissions, and we committed to align all of our financing activities with the goals and timelines of the Paris Agreement.
“We have a three-part strategy to turn that ambition into action: achieving net zero operations, reducing our financed emissions, and financing the transition. In practice, this means we have set 2030 targets to reduce our financed emissions in four of the highest emitting sectors in our financing portfolio, with additional 2025 targets for the two highest-emitting sectors – energy and power.
Barclays has been contacted for comment.
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