Europe

British BLM protesters found not guilty of criminal damage for toppling statue of slave trader

by Joseph Choi - 01/06/22 12:11 PM ET

Four British Black Lives Matter activists who were accused of taking down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol were found not guilty of criminal damage this week.

As Sky News reported, Rhian Graham, Jake Skuse, Sage Willoughby and Milo Ponsford were found not guilty of causing criminal damage when they toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston last year during a Black Lives Matter protest sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

In June 2020, the statue of Colston was knocked over and thrown into the harbor of the River Avon.

Colston’s company, the Royal African Company, is believed to have sent over 100,000 Black people from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas, where they were put into slavery, during the 1600s. Tens of thousands of these people are believed to have died while on the ships.

The statue was soon recovered by the city and placed in a museum a year later.

BREAKING: The four people accused of toppling the statue of Edward Colston in #Bristol have been found NOT GUILTY of criminal damage.

Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, Jake Skuse, 33 and Sage Willoughby, 22 became known as the ‘Colston 4’. pic.twitter.com/HHgrEECWtw

— BBC Radio Bristol (@bbcrb) January 5, 2022

During the two-week trial, the defense argued that the statue of Colston — erected in 1895 — was inappropriate, offensive and unwanted by thousands of petitioners.

“Make no mistake, members of the jury, your decision is not just going to be felt in this courtroom or this city,” Liam Walker, a barrister representing Willoughby, told the jury.

Tom Wainwright, who represented Ponsford, compared the statue to “a cancer” that needed to be cut out.

According to Sky News, the public gallery broke out in cheers after the not guilty verdict was read out.

“We are ecstatic and stunned. I’m just so overwhelmed because it never felt like we’d get here and now we’re here,” Graham, one of the defendants, said outside the courtroom. “We just want to say thank you to so many people because we have never been alone in this journey.”

“One thing that we know now is that Colston does not represent Bristol,” he added.