An environmental campaigner who had locked himself underground in tunnels dug near Euston station in London has evaded an HS2 eviction team who had been trying to remove him for about 25 hours. The team had been digging around Lazer Sandford, 20, to try to release him from his lock-on – a metal “arm tube” surrounded by a concrete casing. However, before they could get to work on the next stage of removing him, cutting through the arm tube in order to remove the lock altogether, he escaped and, taking the tube with him, headed back into the tunnels. Other activists said he was now enjoying “a well-earned break”. Speaking from the tunnel, Sandford said: “HS2 is a leading perpetrator of many of the problems we are facing in the UK today. People are down here in the tunnel because of the climate and ecological emergency.” Larch Maxey, 48, one of nine activists who have spent more than a week beneath Euston Square Gardens, said bailiffs had begun drilling to remove Sandford from the bottom of a down shaft on Thursday evening. In video footage released on Friday afternoon by the protesters showing attempts by bailiffs to remove Sandford, he can be heard saying: “A bailiff has been sitting on me for at least an hour. I’m finding it incredibly uncomfortable as you can imagine. It would be nice if he could get off me.” The eviction team said Sandford had been offered safety goggles, masks, ear protection and offered a fire blanket for dust as they carried out their work. The team have been digging a parallel down shaft over the past few days and on Thursday evening connected it to the protesters’ shaft, coming face to face for the first time. The bailiffs, part of the national eviction team from the firm High Court Enforcement, have used a pump to remove some of the water from the tunnel floor. Maxey said the bailiff team’s digging of the parallel tunnel was the safest way to carry out the eviction. On Friday night it was announced that one campaigner, understood to be a 17-year-old girl, had been arrested after leaving the tunnel voluntarily. An HS2 Ltd spokesman said: “One of the illegal trespassers has voluntarily left the underground tunnel this evening, and we urge the others to follow. “Onsite paramedics offered immediate medical assistance, which was refused. The trespasser was then arrested by the Metropolitan police and taken to a London hospital as a precaution.” It is understood the protester had been feeling unwell and other activists praised her on social media for her 10-day stint in the tunnel. While the activists are concerned about the climate emergency overall and the entire HS2 project, one of the reasons for digging a network of tunnels beneath Euston Square Gardens was to try to protect the green space, which they claim will be built over with a temporary taxi rank before being sold to developers as part of plans for railway. HS2 Rebellion, an alliance of groups and individuals campaigning against the project, has called on the government to scrap the “expensive, unpopular and destructive” scheme before it is too late and set up a national citizens’ assembly to “lead the way out of the climate and ecological emergency”. Dan Hooper, the veteran environmental campaigner known as Swampy, and his son Rory, 16, are among the group in the tunnel. Earlier this week a high court judge rejected a legal attempt to halt the eviction. Mr Justice Knowles refused an application brought by Maxey for an injunction requiring HS2 and others to cease operations. HS2 Ltd has said it has legal possession of the land and repeatedly urged protesters to leave “for their own safety” before they are removed by the eviction team. An HS2 spokesperson said: “The safety of those trespassing and that of the HS2 staff and emergency service personnel in this operation is of paramount importance. We are doing all we can to end this illegal action safely, and progress has been made with access secured to the underground tunnel. “As has been reported this morning, the illegal trespassers have attached themselves underground, which increases the danger to themselves, but also to our team and the emergency services. “The high court this week issued an order to require the illegal occupiers to leave their tunnel. Dr Maxey still hasn’t complied with the court order, which also told him to provide information on the tunnels and its occupants. “We urge Dr Maxey to comply with the order as soon as possible – for his safety and the safety of the other activists and the HS2 staff and agents tasked with removing them from the danger they have put themselves in.”