Toppling of Bristol's Colston statue was ‘violent act’ not protected by ECHR, judges rule

28 September 2022, 15:06 | Updated: 28 September 2022, 15:12

The felling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was a violent act which wasn't protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, senior judges have ruled.

Four people were prosecuted after the statue was toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020.

The group were all acquitted of criminal damage by a jury, but then faced a Court of Appeal hearing following a referral by then-Attorney General Suella Braverman.

In today's ruling, appeal judges found in favour of a preliminary argument put forward by the prosecution at trial – that toppling the statue was “not peaceful” and not protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

“The court has concluded that the prosecution was correct in its submission that the conduct fell outside the protection of the Convention”, said the judges, in a summary of their ruling.

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“Specifically, the circumstances in which the statue was damaged did not involve peaceful protest. The toppling of the statute was violent.

“Moreover, the damage to the statue was significant. The proportionality of the conviction could not arise.

“Debate about the fate of the statue had to be resolved through appropriate legal channels, irrespective of a view that those channels were thought to have been slow or inefficient, and not by what might be described as a form of self-help.”

The memorial to the slave trader was pulled from its plinth on June 7 2020, daubed in blue and red paint and rolled into Bristol harbour.

All four defendants - known as the Colston Four - admitted involvement in the incident, but they denied their actions were criminal, claiming the statue itself represented a hate crime against the people of Bristol.

Defence lawyer Raj Chada, a partner at Hodge Jones & Allen, said: “We are disappointed by the Court of Appeal judgment.

“In our view, the evidence at the trial was that the toppling was not done violently.

"The clear view from an expert valuer, which we were prevented from relying upon during the trial, was that the value of the statue had increased exponentially after the toppling.

“The statue is still on public display as a monument to the evils of the slave trade, not as an obscene glorification of a slave trader. It is a shame that this is the Attorney General’s focus rather than the multiple crises facing this country.”

The Attorney General’s reference and today’s decision doesn't affect the not guilty verdicts at trial, but clarifies an area of the law in the acquittal of one defendant, Rhian Graham.

In its judgment, the Court of Appeal added that in allegations of criminal damage where there is only “minor or trivial damage”, it's possible a criminal prosecution “may not be a proportionate response in the context of protest”.

“We cannot conceive that the Convention could be used to protect from prosecution and conviction those who damage private property to any degree than is other than trivial”, said the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett of Maldon, Mr Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Saini.

“It is essential that prosecutorial discretion on whether to proceed to trial be exercised carefully, applying the Code for Crown Prosecutors in the context of the principles governing articles 9, 10 and 11 (of the ECHR) with a clear eye on the proportionality of prosecution and conviction.”