A Just Stop Oil protester who scaled a bridge on the Dartford Crossing said it was a "warning message".

Morgan Trowland, 40, told Basildon Crown Court he used ropes and other climbing equipment to shuffle up the cables of Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which carries the M25 between Essex and Kent, on October 17 of last year.

The court heard Trowland, along with Marcus Decker, 34, ascended to a point close to 200ft above the road, close to the top of the bridge towers, and unfurled a Just Stop Oil banner.

Previously, prosecutor Adam King told the jury that their action caused the bridge to be closed from 4am until 9pm the following day, causing “gridlock for miles around”.

Trowland told the jury: “We climbed it to deliver a warning message – to put up a banner saying Just Stop Oil and to speak that message through interviews with journalists.”

He said the activist group’s goal is to get the Government to stop licensing oil and gas production.

“That is putting fuel on the fire of climate change.”

He told the court the media only reports on things that “cause trouble”, adding the bridge was picked for the protest due to its proximity to three fuel depots.

Trowland compared climate change to an iceberg, with everyone living in a “fantasy” that they are on an “unsinkable ship”.

“Think back to the story of the Titanic, why did they get into such a dangerous situation?,” he said.

“Everyone was in a fantasy that they were in an unsinkable ship.”

He told the jury that the Titanic’s captain behaved recklessly because, “he thought his ship was unsinkable”.

“He put his engines to full steam, even though he did not know what risks were ahead.”

Trowland, of Islington, north London, and Decker, 34, of no fixed address, deny causing a public nuisance.