Four people have been charged with criminal damage after the toppling of a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol on 7 June this year, The Guardian reports.
Colston’s statue was dumped into the city harbour by Bristolians during a Black Lives Matter protest and has since been retrieved. It is undergoing a restoration that will preserve the graffiti and an old bike tire it acquired from the water; it will be displayed in a museum alongside BLM placards. Bristol city council has said the damage to the statue has amounted to about £3,750.
Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Jake Skuse and Sage Willoughby have been ordered to appear before Bristol magistrates court on 25 January for their first hearing, following an investigation by Avon and Somerset police.
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service has reminded all concerned ‘that criminal proceedings against all four are now active and that they have the right to a fair trial. It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.’
A petition for the statue’s removal had gained thousands of signatures, and the toppling has seen increased pressure from the public, as well as the BLM movement, to remove memorials to colonialists in Britain – most notably of Cecil Rhodes. Following the toppling of Colston’s statue, on 17 June Oxford University’s Oriel College voted to take down its statue of Rhodes, but Rhodes Must Fall campaigners remained cautious about celebrating the decision. A commission set up by the college to examine Rhodes’s statue’s future has until January 2021 to report back.
