Two Just Stop Oil activists who threw soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece in an “idiotic” stunt have been jailed.
Anna Holland, 22, and Phoebe Plummer, 23, were convicted of criminal damage after launching the contents of two tins of Heinz tomato soup at the world-famous painting as it hung in London’s National Gallery.
Staff rushed to take Sunflowers from the wall and were relieved to find the artwork had escaped damage due to its protective glass screen. But soup dripped on to the 17th Century Italian frame, causing damage estimated to be worth £10,000.
At Southwark crown court on Friday, Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced Plummer to two years and three months in prison and jailed Holland for 20 months, calling the stunt “stupidity” and concluding they “couldn’t have cared less” if Sunflowers had been damaged.
“The frame was permanently damaged by your idiotic and criminal actions”, he said.
“The painting itself, Sunflowers, could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed. Your stance at trial was a blithe dismissal of the risk involved in what you did.”
He added that Van Gogh’s work “belongs to the entire world and his work is part of humanity’s shared cultural treasures.
“You simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strictest condemnation.”
Judge Hehir was responsible in July for jailing other eco-activists for four and five years each over a plot to shut down large parts of the M25 through protest.
The sentences are believed to be the longest ever handed out in Britain in a case involving peaceful protest.
During mitigation, Plummer made a lengthy speech, called herself as a “political prisoner”, and compared her actions with the campaigns of the suffragettes
The judge told her: “This isn’t helping you - there may be an audience you are playing to, but it really isn’t helping.”
And he added: “Telling an English judge we have political prisoners in this jurisdiction when you think of people suffering in dungeons under tyranny across the world...what you are doing is what many people would regard as an offensive comparison.”
In his sentencing remarks, the judge went further, calling her comments “ludicrous, self-indulgent, and offensive”.
Holland and Plummer staged their gallery protest on October 14, 2022 while calling for an end to UK licences for drilling oil.
They entered the gallery while posing as interested art-lovers, and headed to the room which houses the Van Gogh work.
After loitering in the area and waiting for a space in front of the Sunflowers to clear, Holland and Plummer removed their jackets to reveal white t-shirts emblazoned with the Just Stop Oil slogan.
They took out a can of soup each and threw it towards the priceless painting, before proceeding to glue themselves to the gallery wall.
Prosecutors said the stunt had been planned for maximum publicity, and a supporter was on hand to record the incident as Plummer shouted out: "What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?
"Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?
"The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis."
There were audible gasps when the soup was first thrown, before calls for security, and the painting was protected from damage by a glass screen.
However the court heard £10,000 of damage was done to the frame’s paintwork as soup dripped down.
Plummer and Holland argued they knew that the artwork was covered in a glass screen, and did not believe they would cause any damage.
But the judge replied: “Neither of the defendants are stupid, they knew that if you throw two tins of soup at a painting then of course soup is going to get on to the frame.”
Artists and art historians signed an open letter calling on Judge Hehir to spare the activists a prison term, suggesting the stunt was a work of art itself and the soup splatter was reminiscent of the creations of Jackson Pollock.
Plummer was also sentenced for her part in a slow-march protest near the A4 in west London, which brought traffic to a standstill.
She, along with Chiara Sarti, 25, and Daniel Hall, were convicted of “interference with key national infrastructure” under the Public Order Act 2023, using provisions of a law which were designed by the last Conservative government to crackdown on disruptive environmental protests.
Plummer, Sarti and Hall walked slowly along Earls Court Road, causing long tailbacks back to the Hammersmith flyover.
Judge Hehir called them “a group of idiots”, and said the location had been “carefully chosen to maximise disruption”.
He said an ambulance containing a patient in need of critical care was held up, together with delivery drivers, buses, and commuters.
“Anybody caught up in a stunt like this is likely to be alarmed, or distressed, or both”, he said, calling the incident “pointless, self-absorbed, and self-righteous law-breaking”.
In a statement of mitigation, Plummer said: “I made the choice to take the action that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution.
“I made choices because I believe non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool ordinary people have at their disposal to bring about rapid social change required to protest life from, and reduce the suffering caused by, the accelerating climate emergency.”
Judge Hehir said he accepts Plummer has deeply-held beliefs, but added: “You have decided your beliefs entitle you to commit crimes as and when you feel like it - they do not.”
He sentenced Sarti and Hall to a 12-month community order with 100 hours of community service and imposed a criminal behaviour order on both defendants.
Sarti, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, was ordered to undergo 15 rehabilitation session days, and both defendants were ordered to pay £500 each towards the cost of their trial.
A squad of Metropolitan Police officers have been deployed to the courthouse for an unprecedented security operation for the sentencing hearings, with barriers blocking off traffic to the outside of the building and security fences lining the pavements.
Anyone entering the courtroom also has to go through an extra security check, including a fingertip pat-down.
Plummer, from Clapham, and Holland, of Newcastle, were found guilty at trial of criminal damage.
Plummer, Sarti, from Cambridge, and Hall, from Cowden in Kent, were found guilty by a jury of interfering with the use or operation of key national infrastructure.
The court heard Plummer is appealing her slow marching conviction, but is not intending to challenge her conviction for the painting stunt.
She was jailed for two years for the Van Gogh attack, and a further three months for the slow march offence.
