TWO women have been ordered to pay more than £800 each after staging an anti-war protest at a top-security air base.

In March, Olivia Agate, 61, of Skipton, and Sylvia Boyes, 59, of Keighley, spent almost eight hours at RAF Leeming, campaigning against the war.

The women defaced signs, scrawled graffiti on a minibus and laid a banner across a minor runway.

The women said they broke into the base after seeing Tornadoes, which they believed were preparing for the Gulf.

Agate said: "We decided perhaps we could do something to stop some of them going to the Gulf.

"I believe our actions were legal in that we were committing a lesser crime in order to prevent a greater crime."

The two women appeared at Richmond Magistrates' Court last Friday. Each had pleaded not guilty to four charges of causing criminal damage while trespassing. Chairwoman of the bench Pauline Hansom said the ease with which the women had entered the base and not been seen was worrying.

Agate said: "Had we been terrorists we could have opened the gate and driven a vehicle in, wired the hangers and detonated them and got clean away." Each woman was ordered to pay £854.50 in fines, costs and compensation.