THE parents of an Oxford woman who was this week found guilty of ‘endangering an airport’ after she attempted stop the deportation of migrants to Africa have revealed their pride at her actions.

May MacKeith, 33, from Botley, was one of 15 people who entered Stansted Airport last year, delaying the plane’s departure from the runway for up to 10 hours.

Speaking after the verdict delivered at Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday, Bill and Angela MacKeith said: “Along with our love and admiration for the defendants, we also feel gratitude. Not only have they saved lives, but they have upheld the values of social justice and human rights on behalf of us all.

“They are part of a long tradition of standing up against authority when you think it is doing something wrong. It’s a tradition we cherish in Oxford and we thank the Stansted 15 for showing us the way to love and welcome people as our neighbour who we’ve never met before but who need our help.”

After a ten week trial, the group were found guilty at Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday having been controversially charged with rarely used terror-related offences.

They will be sentenced at the same court in February.

In a letter sent to the Oxford Mail today, Mr and Mrs MacKeith said: "We have spent the last ten weeks getting to know Chelmsford while we have been attending our daughter's trial in the Crown Court. May was born and brought up in Oxford, and Oxford can feel proud of her.

"She was one of 15 people who dared to stop a charter flight deporting some 60 people to Nigeria in March 2017. It took the group just six minutes to snip the fence and lock themselves round the nose wheel of the Boeing 767, and around a tripod with a banner on it telling the authorities they were not terrorists but protesters. They lay on the cold tarmac in the rain for the next ten hours while the Police Release Team cut them free. The flight was cancelled and as a result, eleven people are still here. Four had been trafficked, one was faced with destitution in Nigeria while his wife and children managed as best they could without him in England, one was spared death at the hands of her abusive ex-husband who was waiting for the plane to land.

"The Home Office has much to be ashamed of in their hostile immigration policy, and it took courage to confront it like that. The group expected to be arrested for Aggravated Trespass, but prosecution for offences under an Act designed to bring the UK into line with protocol dealing with terrorism at international airports came as a surprise, as did the Guilty verdict. We had watched in mounting disbelief the Prosecution's efforts to spin straw into gold as they sought ways to suggest that the protest, which was confined to a remote corner of the airport, could somehow have brought the whole well-run Stansted machine into confusion. It was clear to us that the only people in danger on that night were the people waiting to go on the plane. But if, as the Prosecution claimed, you think the momentary alarm of the pilot outweighs those people’s real fear of destitution or death, then you can believe black is white and can say anything you like.

"Along with our love and admiration for the defendants, we also feel gratitude. Not only have they saved lives, but they have upheld the values of social justice and human rights on behalf of us all.  They are part of a long tradition of standing up against authority when you think it is doing something wrong. It's a tradition we cherish in Oxford. And we thank the Stansted 15 for showing us the way to love and welcome people as our neighbour who we've never met before but who need our help."