a group from whom firecrackers were thrown in the direction of police officers. She decided not to give any personal details and tried to stay anonymous. As a consequence, she was taken into pretrial detention (as "Unknown Person III" [UP III]), thereby missing her flight back home to Australia one week later. According to the prosecutor she was identified one day before her trial, which took place on 31 July 2018. She was sentenced to nine months in prison, without parole. She was released after a court hearing on 4 October. Police clearing the tree houses (September 2018) On 13 September 2018 a large scale police operation started initiated by North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Construction to evict more than fifty tree houses which existed for up to six years because they didn't comply with fire safety regulation standards. To protect life and limb of the tree house occupants was announced as an important goal of the operation. Journalist falls and dies As evictions continued, on 19 September 2018, the 27-year old artist, blogger and journalist Steffen Meyn fell through a walkway of 15 meters height in the treehouse village of Beechtown and died. Meyn was working on a long-time documentary project of the activities in the Hambach Forest. Immediate resuscitation efforts failed. The eviction of tree houses was stopped immediately after that incident by Herbert Reul, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister. He said "We cannot just proceed as normal — at least I can't." The eviction proceedings resumed on 23 September 2018. According to a police statement all 86 tree houses had been evicted and destroyed on 2 October 2018. Police clearance ruled illegal A Cologne court ruled on 8September 2021 that the eviction had been carried out under a false pretext and was therefore illegal. According to the court, the police operation, as authorized by the North Rhine-Westphalia state government, had “pretended” to enforce fire protection rules when the real aim was to clear the protest camp. Fifth occupation (2018–2020) Court order stops clearance again (October 2018) On 5 October 2018 the Higher Administrative Court () of Münster ruled that the clearance of Hambach Forest by RWE had to stop immediately until evidence brought by BUND could be evaluated. The evidence in question concerned the threat to the local Bechstein's bat population. The final court decision was expected for 2020. Activists started to build new tree houses again. Large demonstration