An airport boss has told a Court how protesters, including a Shipley woman, broke into an Aberdeen terminal and locked themselves inside a cage.

Duty manager Michael Frost was giving evidence at the trial of nine people accused of staging a protest and preventing flights from taking off or landing at Aberdeen Airport on March 3 last year.

The group, which is alleged to have included Katherine MacKay, 21, of Birklands Road, Shipley, was said to have committed a breach of the peace and placed others in a state of fear and alarm.

Mr Frost told Aberdeen Sheriff Court a “weird phone call” alerted the airport support centre a protest was about to happen.

He said: “It was from a female informing us that we could expect protest activity at the airport within the next two hours.”

Mr Frost said as he hung up the phone he spotted two people on the terminal roof with a ladder.

He said he was “alarmed and concerned”.

“I didn’t know who we were dealing with at the time or what they were about,” he said.

“They had obviously breached the airfield and were on the roof of the terminal building.”

After informing security and police the duty manager said he went on to the airfield where he saw a banner on the roof and several of the protesters inside a cage.

Mr Frost claimed four people were padlocked to the corners of the cage and some of the protesters wore high visibility vests reading ‘Plane Stupid’.

The nine have denied cutting the airport’s perimeter fence before climbing on to the roof of the terminal building and unfurling a banner. It was also alleged the airport was forced to close as a result of the incident. The group was said to have refused to leave when requested, committing a breach of the peace.

The defendants, who all deny the charges against them, are Katherine MacKay, 21; Mark Andrews, 26, of Edinburgh; William Boggia, 44, of Ballater, Aberdeenshire; Matilda Gifford, 25, Daniel Glass, 26, Emilia Karwowska, 20, Jonathan Agnew, 24, and Josephine Hanson, 25, all of Glasgow, and James Kerr, 35, of Paisley, Renfrewshire.

The case continues.