AN anti-nuclear protest by three women that blocked the main road into Hinkley B power station cost EDF approximately one million euros, it it was claimed at Taunton Magistrates Court on Friday.

Ornella Saibene, 55, Marian Connelly, 61, and Caroline Hope, 73, effectively prevented all access to the power plant on April 1 this year when they chained themselves together and lay across the road, preventing workers from accessing the site.

The protest started just after 7am and caused a three-mile build up of traffic until they agreed to move at 9.20am.

The women timed their action to coincide with a shift changeover preventing up to 2,500 people getting to work.

The women – all from Bristol – were each fined £200 and ordered to pay £105 costs after pleading guilty to obstructing the routehighway.

Joanne Pearce, prosecuting, said: “The closure cost one million euros. Their disregard to safety and the security of a nuclear power station cannot be tolerated.”

Connelly, Saibene and Hope argued they were exercising their democratic right to civil disobedience and had not committed a criminal offence.

Saibene, a care worker, told the court: “Hinkley is dangerous and should have been shut down in 2006. It has moved safety margins from zero to ‘calculable’ and nuclear power causes irreversible human and environmental damage for centuries.”

Hope said they had considered their actions very carefully and added: “I have never broken the law in my life but I felt impelled to do so.”

She read out a statement from Green West Euro MP Molly Scott Cato comparing nuclear power stations to “ageing dinosaurs.”

Connelly told the court that Jonathan Porritt, a former director of Friends of the Earth, had told campaigners he would be “with you in spirit”.