The Court of Appeal has ruled that people who rely on a defence citing their own human rights in criminal damage trials can only do so if what they damage is of low value - in a case sparked by the acquittal of the Colston 4 in Bristol earlier this year.
The former Attorney General Suella Braverman, now the Home Secretary, brought the case to the Court of Appeal after the four Colston statue topplers were acquitted in January, asking senior judges to clarify a point of the law that the case raised.
The clarification today, cited as ‘disappointing’ and ‘worrying’ by human rights watchdog Liberty, does not affect the acquittal of the Colston 4 retrospectively, but one legal expert said that the four might have been convicted if the ruling had been made before the trial.
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The Colston 4 employed a variety of different defences as they successfully proved that they had not committed criminal damage when they toppled then rolled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston from his plinth in The Centre in Bristol in June 2020.
The main defence given to the jury was that the presence of the statue celebrating a man responsible for the deaths of at least 20,000 enslaved people on his ships when he ran the Royal Africa Company - and the failure of Bristol City Council to address the issue - was a greater crime than damaging it when it was pulled down.
But another of the defences given by the four accused was that convicting them would be a disproportionate interference with an individual’s human right to protest about something. And that was the single point of law that the then-Attorney General went to the Court of Appeal to seek clarification on. The Court of Appeal today (Wednesday, September 28) did clarify that - sort of - by saying an individual can only cite their own human rights and the right to protest if the damage they committed was small, not large.
And the Appeal Court judges did rule that the toppling of the statue, which they described as a ‘violent act’, did come under the ‘large’ category, so the four defendants would not have been able to use the human rights defence.
One of the Colston 4’s lawyers, Raj Chada, said: “We are disappointed by the Court of Appeal judgement. 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,” he added.
And another lawyer, Laura O’Brien, said: “Local Government did nothing to address the harm done by this grotesque and offensive statue, yet the CPS chose to prosecute four people who did.
“Curtailing the rights of protestors has become high on the political agenda of this Government. While we head towards an economic crisis, no wonder the Government chooses to stifle anything which challenges the status quo,” she added.
Human rights watchdog Liberty said the ruling was worrying - and put a limit on the human rights to protest for everyone in this country.
Liberty said the judgement creates a new threshold that, in some cases, weakens the right to protest, and ‘might have meant the Colston Four were convicted, not acquitted’.
“Protest is a fundamental right, not a gift from the State,” said Liberty lawyer Katy Watts. “Today’s judgement puts a threshold on when people can enact their human rights in a legal case, and takes away vital protections that empower everyone to be able to stand up for what they believe in.
“We are disappointed that the Court has said that human rights are not always linked to acts of protest. By placing weight on the value of an object in deciding if human rights can be taken into account, we feel that the court is shifting the balance too far away from our essential human rights.
“In recent years we have seen this Government chip away at our protest rights. From restrictions on protest in the Policing Act to further attacks in the Public Order Bill – which rehashes the draconian measures thrown out in the Act, including protest banning orders and expansions of stop and search powers – the Government is making it much harder for people to challenge them and to access justice.
“The Public Order Bill, if passed, will be a hammer blow to protest rights that builds upon the damage of both the Policing Act and today’s ruling. It is vital that instead of weakening our freedom of expression, the Government safeguards our protest rights,” she added.
Read next:
- Colston 4 case to go to Court of Appeal this month
- Jesus joins the Bristol Bus Boycott to replace Colston stained glass window
- Thatchers Cider boss ‘devastated’ by Countering Colston boycott campaign
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