The verdict is in on the case of the Colston statue in Bristol. Not guilty. Every one of the accused is innocent. And I mean that: everyone is innocent until proven guilty. If found not guilty, they must — at all times — have retained their innocence. But something feels wrong. Eminent lawyers have described the verdict as both absurd and perverse.
In the UK we ‘relate’ to law. We aren’t taught it in schools. Our parents, teachers, instead introduce it to us by osmosis. We have a feel for it, a grasp of it. We might have felt we knew what criminal damage was, and we might have felt that pulling down a statue was wrong.
That turns out to be an error. It seems that there is a defence to any charge of criminal damage if you ‘genuinely believe the owner consents to you doing the damage’. And it turns out that how genuine you are is a question for a jury.
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