Bristol: Court acquits protesters after falling from slave

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The defendants Sage Willoughby, Jake Skuse, Milo Ponsford and Rhian Graham (from left) after the verdict

Photo: Ben Birchall / AP

After the fall of a statue of slavers in Bristol as part of the anti-racism protests in 2020, four people responsible were acquitted in court.

The three men and a woman between the ages of 22 and 33 were exonerated from charges of criminal damage to property, as the Bristol Crown Court announced at the end of a two-week trial.

The defendants Sage Willoughby, Jake Skuse, Milo Ponsford and Rhian Graham had overturned the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston (1636-1721) and thrown it into the nearby docks during a "Black Lives Matter" protest on June 7, 2020.

The demos took place after the African American George Floyd was brutally killed by a police officer in the US city of Minneapolis.

Although a number of demonstrators were involved in the fall of the statue, only four ended up in court.

A video showed them wrapping a rope around the statue.

Protesters argued the statue itself was a form of hate crime

The incident had sparked debates around the world about how to deal with colonial history and in some cases also resulted in the removal of statues of people with a colonial past.

In Germany, for example, in Hamburg a discussion had flared up about preserving the larger-than-life Bismarck statue.

The defendants did not deny their role in the events in court, but did not consider their actions to be criminal.

Instead, they argued that the statue itself was a case of hate crime against Bristol residents.

Its defenders alleged that thousands had previously petitioned the removal of the statue erected in 1895 and urged the court to "stand on the right side of history."

The Colston statue was recovered after falling into the harbor basin and has been on display in a museum since last year.

"This is a victory for Bristol," said the defendant Willoughby after the verdict, according to Reuters news agency.

fek / dpa / Reuters