Dylan Roffey is charged with criminal damage and resisting a police officer (Picture: PA)

A vegan activist was part of a mob of 20 who ‘overwhelmed’ security at McDonald’s and ‘threw red paint across the premises’, a court has heard.

Activists stormed into the Brighton fast food chain on May 17, holding signs and chanting through a megaphone.

A number of protesters gathered outside Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday in support of Dylan Roffey, who is standing trial in connection with the incident earlier this year.

Roffey is charged with criminal damage and resisting a police officer.

She denies the offences.

The 24-year-old appeared in court wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that read ‘meat the victims’.

McDonald’s assistant manager Robert Frost, who was in charge of the restaurant on the evening the incident occurred, told the court that between 10 and 20 protesters had arrived at about 7.30pm.

Dylan Roffey, 24, is charged with criminal damage and resisting a police officer (Picture: PA)

He said: ‘They overwhelmed security.

‘One of them had a loudspeaker chanting slogans about how there is animals being killed and they began throwing red paint, to show blood, across the premises.

‘Some of the customers were quite upset.’

Mr Frost said he called the police and many of the protesters started to leave, but one woman refused.

He said the next thing he saw was officers having to pull her up and take her outside.

Vegan activist Dylan Roffey wearing a pig mask during a protest in the McDonald’s on May 17 (Picture: PA)

Activists stormed into the Brighton fast food chain on May 17 (Picture: PA)

Dylan Roffey (right) alongside supporters outside Brighton Magistrates Court (Picture: PA)

Roffey’s solicitor, Meredoc McMinn, sought to have the resisting a police officer charge dismissed on the basis of ‘unreasonable force’.

He said: ‘These were protesters who went into McDonald’s and poured some coloured dye with water.

‘I would submit that the force was unreasonable and excessive.

‘She could not have been obstructing the officer, because he agreed she was not able to move.’

District judge Amanda Kelly declined to dismiss the charge and the case continues.