Colston statue toppling goes to Court of Appeal
THE next step in the legal battle over the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston is to take place later this month.
The Attorney General’s referral to the Court of Appeal will be heard on June 29 and 30.
The statue was toppled two years ago - and although six people accepted a police caution for their part in the criminal damage of the listed monument, four people who were charged with criminal damage were acquitted by a jury earlier this year.
Now, the Attorney General’s referral to the Court of Appeal will go ahead in London on the last two days of June.
The case has been listed for two days and will involve the Attorney General, Conservative MP Suella Braverman, asking the Court of Appeal’s panel of senior judges to consider the trial judge’s directions to the jury in the case that was heard in Bristol in December and January.
The defendants, known as the Colston 4 were found not guilty of criminal damage, despite acknowledging they had played a part either in the toppling of the statue on June 6, 2020, or helped drag it to Pero’s Bridge and throwing it into the Floating Harbour.
The Colston 4’s defence argued, among other things, that the act of toppling the statue of a prominent slave trader on whose ships tens of thousands of enslaved people had died, was proportionate.
They also argued during the trial that the statue itself had been independently assessed as being more valuable after it was fished out of the harbour than before it was toppled, challenging the claim by Bristol City Council that there had been a cost of the damage to the statue.
And the defence also argued that in not removing the statue despite decades of campaigning by people in Bristol, the city council had effectively committed a hate crime for leaving it up there.
The jury’s reason for acquitting the Colston 4 will never be known, but the Attorney General’s appeal will specifically ask the Court of Appeal judges to examine Judge Euan Blair’s directions to the jury in the trial in Bristol.
Judge Blair allowed the defence arguments to widen the case to the merits of the statue itself, and his directions discussed those defence arguments.
The Attorney General’s referral will not and cannot overturn the acquittal of each of the Colston 4, but could - if the ruling goes in her favour - set a precedent for future trials where protesters are accused of criminal damage as part of their protest.
In April when the appeal was announced, the Attorney General said she had concluded the Colston 4 case had led to “uncertainty regarding the interaction between the offence of criminal damage and the rights relevant to protest peacefully”.
“The Court of Appeal will be asked to clarify the law around whether someone can use a defence related to their human rights when they are accused of criminal damage,” a spokesperson for the Attorney General said.
“The court will also consider whether juries should be asked to decide if a conviction for criminal damage is a “proportionate interference” with the human rights of the accused, particularly the right to protest and freedom of expression.
“In the Colston statue case, the judge directed the jury that, before they could convict, they must be sure that doing so would be a ‘proportionate interference’ (in other words compatible) with the defendants’ exercise of their rights to freedom of thought and to freedom of expression,” they added.
It is understood that at least one of the Colston 4 will travel to London to take part in the appeal hearing, and that some of the legal team that mounted their successful defence in Bristol this winter will also be making representations to the Court of Appeal.