Colston statue topplers acquitted

[SerendipityJane]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-59727161

Four people accused of illegally removing a statue of Edward Colston have been cleared of criminal damage.

Sage Willoughby, 22, Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, and Jake Skuse, 33, were charged after a monument to the 17th Century slave trader was pulled down and then thrown into the harbourside in Bristol last June.

It happened during a Black Lives Matter protest in the city.

A jury at Bristol Crown Court found them all not guilty.

During a highly publicised trial, the court heard that the statue was ripped down before being thrown into the harbour during a wave of protests triggered by the murder of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer.

The four defendants, together with "others unknown", were accusing of damaging the Colston statue and plinth of a value unknown without lawful excuse.

During the trial, Mr Skuse said he took part in rolling the statue to the docks to stage a symbolic "sentencing" of the slave trader.

@twelly

People's who think the statue should not have pulled down in this manner are not racist. they are expressing view about adherence to the law.

Luckily the law was followed in this case, seeing as there was a trial, so there's really no need for you to worry about it.

This is not necessarily a case of a radical jury just doing what they feel right in defiance of the law.

In the Extinction Rebellion Shell case the jury were explicitly told that the defendants had no defence in law and acquitted them anyway.
amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/jury-acquits-extinction-rebellion-protesters-despite-no-defence-in-law
Likewise in the George Blake prison escape the judge told the jury that his assistants had no legal defence but they acquitted anyway.

In this case the jurors were given a variety of admittedly ingenious legal defences which the judge did not exclude and they chose to accept one or all of them, as was their right.

"Liam successfully submitted that ‘prevention of crime’ could be relied upon as a defence and that the jury could consider whether the presence of the statue itself constituted an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.

Liam also identified that the jury should consider if the statue constituted an ‘indecent display’ under Section 1 of the, more obscure, Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981.

In addition, following the case of DPP v. Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23, the trial is believed to be the first trial in which a jury was required to consider whether a conviction of the defendants would have been a disproportionate infringement of the defendants' rights under Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998."

@twelly

People's who think the statue should not have pulled down in this manner are not racist. they are expressing view about adherence to the law.

did you miss the bit where they were tried in a court of law?

@PassingByAndThoughtIdDropIn has it here. This is a very interesting thread on how the public thinks the law works and what this verdict means. The jury did not disregard the law. It accepted a defence as far as I can see.

Just one correction- in the Shell case, the judge directed that one of the defendants had a legal defence. I happen to know the details of that and it's a great argument! (From a geeky law perspective)

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

@Flapjacker48

So let's say a war memorial, or memorial plaque of some sort was vandalised/defaced - is that okay if someone has sincere (to them), strongly held beliefs that the conflict was "illegal" say?

well, taking this case as an example, which we obviously are, it would depend on the nature of the statue/memorial and if there had been long-standing and sustained protests and complaints about it previously?

So, say there was a statue of Tony Blair which referred to the Iraq War, and that was defaced, then, yes. If it was a list of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, then that would be very different.

@Blossomtoes

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

why is it a perversion of our legal system? What do you mean by that?

@Blossomtoes

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

A jury accepting a defence and deciding that the prosecution has not proved its case is not a perversion of our legal system. It's literally how our legal system works.

@Blossomtoes

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

You don't understand the legal process you're commenting on.

@Blossomtoes

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

Its baked in to our legal system, I suggest you read the link

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

And a jury decision does not set a precedent.

@Blossomtoes

They were tried in a court of law. They broke the law but the jury decided that was OK. It’s a very dangerous precedent and a perversion of our legal system. Why bother having laws at all if people can break them with impunity when it suits them?

Get rid of juries, maybe ?

How about we now charge the jurors for not doing what they were "supposed" to ? I wonder if that has ever been tried before ?

Ultimately you either believe it's better that 9 guilty go free than one innocent be punished or not. Clearly a lot of people here are quite comfortable with innocent people being punished just as long as their comfy world view never has to be challenged.

I think people going on about precedent are basing their legal knowledge off americal legal shows.

If one person is aquitted of murder, it doesnt set a precedent for everyone else to murder with impunity.

The defendents set out their defence on an interpretation of several laws/policies etc. If you do not agree with the jury aquitting them then you have the right to campaign for a change to those.

And as for those who think that no changes to law and policy should ever come about through anything other than letter writing and polite campaigning, I take it you are happy to hand back your right to vote? Or bring back slavery for that matter as an (illegal) rebellion was one of the reasons it was abolished in the uk?

Well thats a slippery slope isnt it? So anyone can get away with damaging something thats not theirs because of their personal beliefs? I bet these people were vandalising stuff when they were kids too.
This country has lost the plot

I think people going on about precedent are basing their legal knowledge off americal legal shows

Well they aren't basing it on knowledge of the English legal system, that's for good and certain.

@VikingOnTheFridge

I think people going on about precedent are basing their legal knowledge off americal legal shows

Well they aren't basing it on knowledge of the English legal system, that's for good and certain.

I think the word "knowledge" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence anyway.

So anyone can get away with damaging something thats not theirs because of their personal beliefs

Not really no. The defence they used wouldnt have worked if they, for example, broke a window in a shop, defaced a wall with graffiti (and I really do hope the people complaining on this thread also complain about banksy... ). If they had damged 'coluston library' (no idea if that exists)purely on the basis of its name, they might not have had the same defence work

This is a very specific senario for which a very specific interpretation of a set of laws was successfully used as a defence

@2boysDad

"How is being arrested and charged with a crime mob law?"

When a jury allows it.

If Tommy Robinson and his EDF mates pull Nelson Mandela's statue down & throw it in the Thames and subsequently an all white jury let's them off, I'll say the say thing.

But Mandela wasn't a slave trader?

@twelly

How now can anyone be prosecuted for pulling down a statue they disagree with. Perhaps statues of Queen Victoria could be targeted and pulled down - how can those who do that then be prosecuted, in my view this sets a dangerous precedent.

It does not set any precedent, because the decision was made by a jury on the particular facts of the case. Precedents are set when a judge makes a decision on a point of law.

I don't agree with the verdict as we cannot have angry people making these kinds of decisions. I keep thinking of the Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban and think there must be a better way to deal with pieces of history that are now considered offensive.

However that statue should have been consigned to a museum long time ago. History cannot be erased.

@thereisonlyoneofme

Well thats a slippery slope isnt it? So anyone can get away with damaging something thats not theirs because of their personal beliefs? I bet these people were vandalising stuff when they were kids too. This country has lost the plot

No, That's not how it works. You need to do a bit of reading and I don't mean a tabloid newspaper. Plenty of people have explained here why it's not how it works but if you want to pursue your agenda, then you can continue not to listen.

If Tommy Robinson and his EDF mates pull Nelson Mandela's statue down & throw it in the Thames and subsequently an all white jury let's them off, I'll say the say thing

But the edf wpuld have to successfully argue that a statue of mandela was a hate crime, which would be an uphill battle I imagine

Here you go some extra ones you can froth about

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/06/jurors-see-the-bigger-picture-activists-who-were-cleared-in-court

I don't agree with the verdict as we cannot have angry people making these kinds of decisions.

Where does it say the jury was "angry" ?

Colston transported over 84000 slaves to the Caribbean; 19000 died on the way.
Many were tortured or raped.
Separated from family they would never see again.
All for profit.

The four defendants are heroes in my eyes.