Damaging public property ‘will never be acceptable’ in Britain – Grant Shapps

Solely 4 individuals – Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, and Sage Willoughby, 22 and Jake Skuse, 33 – have been prosecuted for pulling the statue down throughout a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7 2020, regardless of an enormous crowd being current.

An additional six got “restorative justice” outcomes, which noticed them pay a £100 wonderful, undertake unpaid work and fill in a questionnaire about their actions.

Chatting with BBC Breakfast, Mr Shapps mentioned: “We do have a clause within the Police, Crime and Sentencing Invoice which is able to maybe shut a possible loophole and imply you possibly can’t simply go spherical and trigger vandalism, destroy the general public realm, after which basically not be prosecuted.”

Underneath present laws, prison injury can appeal to a sentence of as much as 10 years imprisonment, however most sentencing is proscribed by the worth of the injury brought on.

The place the injury is lower than £5,000, the utmost sentence is three months imprisonment and a wonderful of as much as £2,500.

However the brand new Invoice, which is being scrutinised by Parliament for the time being, would enable the courts to think about the “emotional or wider misery” attributable to injury to public property, and lift the utmost sentence to 10 years whatever the prices incurred.

This might prolong to flowers or wreaths positioned at memorials, corresponding to at a headstone or The Cenotaph.

Discussing the jury’s verdict at Bristol Crown Court docket on Wednesday, Mr Shapps mentioned: “I don’t need to be seen to be commenting on a person case, it had a jury, they made the choice, they’d have seen all of the information.

“However as a broader level, I might say we’re not in a rustic the place destroying public property can ever be acceptable.”

He added: “We dwell in a democratic nation. If you wish to see issues modified you will get them modified, you try this by way of the poll field, or petitioning your native council, and so on. You don’t do it by going out and inflicting prison injury.

“We’ll all the time be on the facet of the legislation and when mandatory we are going to repair any loopholes within the legislation to ensure that’s all the time the case.”

Defendant Rhian Graham denied that toppling Colston set a precedent for individuals to begin knocking down statues.

Chatting with Good Morning Britain, she mentioned: “I utterly perceive individuals’s issues and I actually don’t suppose it is a inexperienced gentle for everybody to only begin knocking down statues.

“This second is about this statue on this metropolis on this time.

“I’ll depart the destiny of monuments in different cities to the residents of these cities.”

Elsewhere TV historian and creator David Olusoga, who gave skilled proof for the defence in the course of the trial, mentioned the decision confirmed that when the jury have been making an attempt the case of the proof and never the “tradition struggle” round it.

Chatting with Good Morning Britain, he mentioned: “When (the jury) get that data straight moderately than by way of tabloids or journalists or politicians, then they really react to the proof moderately than to the tradition struggle drum beat that’s constructed round it.

“Most individuals don’t perceive the main points of this historical past, of this statue, and the lengthy marketing campaign to have it eliminated peacefully.”

He added: “That statue standing there for 125 years was validating the profession of a mass assassin.

“And to individuals whose ancestors have been enslaved by Colston and males like him, it’s offensive, and you’ll discuss to 1000’s of individuals in Bristol who discovered it offensive.”