The Unfolding Events: The Evening Led By Donkeys Projected Pictures Featuring Trump and Epstein on to Windsor Castle
When the announcement was made for the former president's second state visit, including a royal dinner at Windsor on 17 September 2025, the activist collective Led By Donkeys was determined not to let it pass unprotested. The act of rolling out the red carpet seemed especially servile. Their subsequent creative protest proceeded like clockwork.
A Deliberate Message
The group produced a nine-minute film detailing Donald Trump’s relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. It concluded: “The commander-in-chief of the United States is alleged to have been a longstanding associate of the nation's most infamous child sex trafficker. He’s alleged to be mentioned, numerous times, in documents related to the investigation into that individual … Now that president, Donald Trump, is a guest within Windsor Castle.” (For his part, Trump maintains he ended his friendship with Epstein years before Epstein’s initial legal troubles and repeatedly refuted all allegations concerning Epstein.)
The Setup
The group had booked rooms in the nearby Harte and Garter hotel, which boast “castle view” and, even more helpfully, superior castle views, said a co-founder, Ben Stewart. Their equipment included a powerful 32,000-lumen projector. For audio, Stewart positioned a wireless speaker, hidden inside a cereal box, atop a garbage can outside.
The world’s media had gathered, staring at the castle, growing restless awaiting Trump's arrival. The film, however, gained traction globally. “Although the still pictures of Epstein and Trump spread like wildfire online,” Stewart says, “I’m not sure that convinces people of anything – it just makes Trump uneasy. The film we made gives people a social object to share, saying: ‘There’s something significant to examine here.’ We took an act of activist journalism about Trump and Epstein, and it was viewed 20m times.”
The Moment of Projection
It started with the recognizable Windsor Castle logo. “Projecting onto a cylindrical building needs a little bit of mapping,” Stewart states. “So there’s this royal crest. Officers are thinking: ‘How pleasant – the royal family,’ and then abruptly a massive image of Jeffrey Epstein materializes. This electric jolt passed through the police in fluorescent jackets around me, and they all pile into the hotel.”
A History of Activism
It wasn't their inaugural action; it wasn’t even their first effort targeting Trump. Back in 2018, during his time with Greenpeace, Stewart piloted a motorized paraglider over the hotel where the president was staying in Scotland. A year later, police visited him that any repeat, his safety wasn't assured.
The Arrests
However, the group's creators weren't overly concerned about arrest. “All my anxiety goes into wanting the protest works,” says Oliver Knowles, a fellow founder. “By the time the police arrive, the message is already out.” Officers was swift, arriving in the lobby in under three minutes, highly agitated, Knowles recalls. “They were in tactical gear and baseball caps. They had located the culprits. They came roaring up the stairs; they were briefed; tasked to protect the president. Thankfully, no firearms. But they were very adrenalised when they entered the room. I had to say: ‘We should keep this calm.’”
Delaying multiple police officers for six minutes. It helped that they were unsure which law to charge anyone. When they finally entered the room, “a policeman started reading a clause of the Town and Country Planning Act, which another officer asked him to stop because it wasn’t right.” Knowles and three additional team members were then arrested for malicious communications, a stalking law. “The law is precise: it’s designed to address a really concerning offence. Applying it to a piece of journalism, displayed on a wall, in defense of the reputation of the president, appeared against the spirit of the legislation,” Stewart says archly. While the others were detained, he slipped away, then soon after boarded a train out of Windsor, contacting legal counsel.
An Ironic Interrogation
Some time in the middle of the night, while the activists were in the cells at Maidenhead police station, officers came in and arrested them again, now for causing a public nuisance, deeming it a stronger charge. When they came to be questioned, the only officers available belonged to the child protection unit – an irony that was not lost on anyone, given the subject matter of the protest concerned alleged sex offender. Knowles and his associates responded to every question with: “I have no comment.” A few minutes into the interview, police presented a photograph: “They asked, did you take the drawer from this bedside table?’ ‘No comment.’ ‘Mr Knowles, do you know anybody else who may have had reason to remove the drawer?’ ‘No comment.’ I anticipated what was coming: a picture of a large projector, ratchet-strapped to four drawers. Then, the officers were finding it hard to maintain their composure.”
The Outcome
A little more than a month later, all charges was dismissed.
