ACTIVISTS who sprayed anti-drone graffiti at Llanbedr Airfield have paid their court fees after receiving nearly £4,000 in donations from campaign supporters.

Four anti-war protesters from across Wales attended Caernarfon Magistrates Court in September and were ordered to pay more than £2,000 to the airfield in compensation and court costs.

Dozens of people have given nearly £4,000 to the activists who painted ‘DIM ADAR ANGAU – NO DEATH DRONES’ in June 2014.

Anna Jane Evans, 52; Sian ap Gwynfor, 59; Awel Irene, 61, and Angharad Wyn Toos, 56 had until last week to pay the charges and were undecided about doing so until the very last available day of payment.

Anna Jane Evans of Caernarfon said: “It is with great reluctance I am paying my share of what it cost to clean the runway.

“I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have wanted to contribute.

“Nearly £4,000 has been collected, way above what we are now paying the courts.

“The additional money is going towards the production of a Wales bilingual version of the educational resource ‘Fly Kites not Drones’ for young people in Wales.”

Awel Irene of Llanfrothen was equally adamant their work should continue.

“We did consider not paying but the four of us are in very different situations, some of us have dependants and other just couldn’t spare the time/money to keep attending court,” Awel told the Cambrian News.

“I believe we’ve achieved what we set out to do though, we’ve raised people’s awareness of the dangers of drones and educational project we’re setting up with the extra donation money will act as a silver lining for quite a dark time for us.

“There’s been an overwhelming response and people are now very keen to be part of our anti-drone campaign.

“Even the judge seemed to understand what we are trying to do, he didn’t fine us just told us to pay compensation and court costs.

“In his summing up he said he understood we had reasonable motives for what we did, it was done in good conscious.”

Following the protest, the four women and other members of anti-war group Cymdeithas y Cymod have been canvassing the local area to collect people’s views.

“A lot of the time people don’t realise these drones are already operating in Meirionnydd, people are shocked,” Awel continued.

“Britain and its partners are now using military drones in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the Yemen and other countries – hundreds of people are dying because of technology tested and developed in Llanbedr.

“The reality is that armed drones make it much easier for governments to opt to use lethal military force rather than engage in diplomatic or political solutions to crisis.

“Drones, in short, are simply making war more likely. It’s a great worry to us and others. We understand people want jobs in the local area - we do too - but we cannot in all good conscious stand behind military drones.

“We’re on a six-month probation period at the moment do we won’t be protesting in the very near future. There will certainly be more campaigns in 2016 though!”

The owners of Llanbedr Airfield were asked to comment, but none was received by the time of publication.