A climate change protester was among nine people who went on trial yesterday charged with shutting down an airport.

Katherine Mackay, 21, of Birklands Road, Shipley, is accused with eight other defendants of cutting a security fence at Aberdeen Airport and locking themselves to fencing they put up on an aircraft taxiing area, preventing take-offs or landings.

The group – which has called itself the ‘Climate 9’ – are also charged with climbing on to the roof of the terminal building and displaying a banner on March 3 last year.

Giving evidence at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, airport security officer Claire Sandison, 26, told the jury she spotted a group of people piecing together a square of metal fencing when on patrol in the early hours of the morning.

Others in the group were playing miniature golf, she said.

Miss Sandison said she was called to the scene on the taxiway at about 3.35am where she also found the perimeter fence line had been cut.

She said: “I could just see they were finishing piecing together four corners. Others were sitting down.”

Asked by prosecutor Alan Townsend what else they were doing, the witness said: “Playing mini golf.”

Police photographs shown to the court earlier showed square fencing in the grounds of the airport with a U-shaped lock attached.

A cut perimeter fence could be seen in one image and others showed a pair of wire cutters and three pairs of bolt cutters lying in grass.

Another picture taken by Kenneth Thomson, of the Scottish Police Services Authority, showed a banner hanging from the top of the terminal building with the words: Nae Trump Games with Climate Change, and a web address: planestupid.com.

About 40 people outside the court had placards supporting the defendants.

The other defendants are Mark Andrews, 26, from Edinburgh; William Boggia, 44, from Ballater, Aberdeenshire; Matilda Gifford, 25, Daniel Glass, 26, Emilia Karwowska, 20, Jonathan Agnew, 24, and Josephine Hanson, 25, all from Glasgow and James Kerr, 35, from Paisley, Renfrewshire.

All nine deny the charges and the trial continues.