Colston 4

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Agree, they done it, caught on film, no doubt about their actions,
The defence is they were protesting against something that offended them.

Message it is giving out is that if something offends you, rip it down rather than go through due process

As you say, dangerous precedent
 
RichA said:
The jury couldn't reach a majority decision. That's how the law works.
Go spend a couple of weeks in one of our crown courts - you'll find plenty of far more worrying results than a few middle class yobs damaging a statue of a slave trader.
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What I find worrying is the application of a jury. Why have a bunch of amateurs interpret the facts instead of a (panel of) judges? Can one ever get a verdict in a political matter like that case? They are always people that agree and disagree with their actions and enough will end up on the jury to hang it. Judges would just apply the law.
A work colleague of mine is just of for 2 weeks of duty, no idea where.
A few years back one was in the pool for something really really big, she was relieved not to get on it but doing some other case instead.

Are there any other countries apart from here and the US that uses juries?
 
RichA said:
The jury couldn't reach a majority decision. That's how the law works.
Go spend a couple of weeks in one of our crown courts - you'll find plenty of far more worrying results than a few middle class yobs damaging a statue of a slave trader.
Click to expand...
Very true, it doesn't make it right though. There are ways to have statues removed by consent but if we are all able to make that decision individually then we have a level of anarchy. I'm with posts 1 & 2 on this.
 
Just been listening to one of the defence lawyers on the case, what came out was that they were using the BLM protest of what was happening in the USA as part of the justification ?.

Would this have happened without the cover of large scale protest in Bristol that day ?
 
There are hundreds of jury trials going on up and down the country, every day.
I don't understand why what is essentially a criminal damage trial would be considered more important than those for murder, sexual offences and human trafficking that fail on a daily basis and pass by without remark.
There aren't enough judges to have a panel for each trial, that's why we have juries of laymen guided by a solitary judge.
I'm not for or against either side of this trial as I didn't hear all the evidence that the jury did, just commenting in general terms.
 
larmen said:
What I find worrying is the application of a jury. Why have a bunch of amateurs interpret the facts instead of a (panel of) judges? Can one ever get a verdict in a political matter like that case? They are always people that agree and disagree with their actions and enough will end up on the jury to hang it. Judges would just apply the law.
A work colleague of mine is just of for 2 weeks of duty, no idea where.
A few years back one was in the pool for something really really big, she was relieved not to get on it but doing some other case instead.

Are there any other countries apart from here and the US that uses juries?
Click to expand...

How do you know that? May be they would also bring in their political/ethical/etc bias.
Just look at how the left & right fight over supreme court judges in the US
 
Kaz said:
Right wing talking points are tolerated on here until someone pops up to challenge the narrative.

The real scandal here is that the council didn’t remove the statue years ago.
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They probably had other things on their mind. Like cleaning streets, collecting your rubbish, keeping traffic moving, fighting fires ....
Perhaps the four should have contacted their local councillor.
I don't necessarily disagree with their views but the verdict does seem to open the door for more overturned criminal damage cases.
 
The Colston 4 chose to have a trial by jury instead of it being heard by a magistrate. I suspect that they knew they wouldn't be able to pull any stunts like claiming the criminal damage was justified because people were threatened/triggered by the statue in front of a magistrate who would be much more likely to look at the lawful aspects. Unfortunately (IMO) they played to the crowd (jury) and got away with it. As stated before, this could open the floodgates and lead to more action like this.
 
JamesR said:
How do you know that? May be they would also bring in their political/ethical/etc bias.
Just look at how the left & right fight over supreme court judges in the US
Click to expand...
Are uk judges political appointees or civil servants that rise through the ranks? I don’t know which it is. But one judge hearing a case works for a lot of other countries.
 
rulefan said:
They probably had other things on their mind. Like cleaning streets, collecting your rubbish, keeping traffic moving, fighting fires ....
Perhaps the four should have contacted their local councillor.
I don't necessarily disagree with their views but the verdict does seem to open the door for more overturned criminal damage cases.
Click to expand...

It’s quite disingenuous to suggest the council was not well aware of the issues given the long running campaign to get them to remove the racist monument to the slave trader. It should never have needed direct action of this nature.
 
Morally/Ethically - correct decision although statue should have been brought down well before it got to this point.

Criminally - open/shut case, it was a criminal act and they should have been punished accordingly. There are probably a number of Insulate Britain protesters feeling a little hard done by at the moment!!
 
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