January 6, 2022
Four protesters who helped tear down Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol were acquitted of all charges this week.
Ed Vickers QC commented:
“The verdicts of the Bristol jury in the Edward Colston statue-toppling case should not lead to knee jerk political reaction or hysteria in the media about it sending out a dangerous message to other demonstrators. It should rather be seen as an affirmation of the strength of the jury system: after hearing all the evidence and consideration of the directions of law from the judge in a fair trial, the jury of twelve randomly chosen citizens of Bristol simply found that the prosecution had not proved its case against those four particular defendants to the criminal standard.”
Read Ed Vickers QC and Tim Kiely Opinion piece for the Times which was written in June 2020 when the Colston Four had first been arrested. Ed reflects that the case of the Colston Four is “a paradigm example of the multifaceted issues involved in civil protest in an advanced democracy coming to terms with its past and the current political and social issues with which it must grapple”.
Read original article in The Times here: [The Times]