Three activists who climbed a crane to highlight world poverty have been cleared of breaching the peace.

Leila Deen, Paul Hutchings and Kath Pasteur, of Brighton and Hove World Development Movement, spent 12 hours on a crane 150ft above Edinburgh on July 5 as the world's leaders were preparing to meet for the G8 summit.

They hung a banner reading "No more Brownwash" to argue that the G8 deal on debt, aid and trade fell far short of the demands of the popular Make Poverty History campaign.

Yesterday the three were tried and acquitted of breaching the peace in the Edinburgh Sheriff's Court.

Ms Deen, 26, from Brighton, said: "The sheriff said we couldn't be convicted because we hadn't caused alarm or distress to anyone. We feel justice has been done and will get on campaigning for justice for the world's poor."

Ms Pasteur, 34, from Brighton, said: "We are not wilful troublemakers but passionately believe in this issue and in getting the Government to live up to its mandate. It's a shame we had to take up valuable court time to do this."

As they waited for their court appearance, thousands of trade justice campaigners, including 30 from Brighton and Hove, attended a mass lobby of MPs at Westminster to demand change to the UK's position on trade.

The Government is proposing to offer cuts in farm and export subsidies at a World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong in December only if developing countries agree to lower their protection of their own industrial and service markets.

Brighton and Hove World Development Movement, which is part of the Trade Justice Coalition, is demanding that subsidies for rich countries are dropped without further conditions being imposed on the developing world.

Ms Deen said: "The Blair-Brown cabinet cannot wear white bands on one hand while cracking the free trade whip with the other."