How Can They Deny Criminal Damage?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-56250697
it was torn from a plinth, rolled through the down and dumped in the harbour, all on camera! Bang the savages up!

[Gromit]

That link is from March ?

Says the trial will be in November. Is there anything more up to date ?

[andy-hughes]

If accused of just about anything, it is a standard response to deny responsibility.

That means that legal process swings into place, and a trial will be held, when the burden of proving guilt wiill rest with the prosecution.

Since the prosecution have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defence do not have to prove innocence, it makes common sense to deny the charge, and let the system take its course.

Any chance of a 'not guilty, however slim, is still better than pleading guilty and simply being convicted and punished.

[THECORBYLOON]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10303813/amp/Supporters-applaud-cheer-Colston-Four-accused-toppling-slave-trader-statue.html

[anneasquith]

Hands up if you are a toppler ?

[Peter Pedant]

and dont forget the cocktail sticks - under the nails !
Hey you could invent the TTT later flow test, where you shove the cocktail stick up their noses - and scream, "I have just about reached where you brayne should be!"

AH's post is good - in short there is a defence to just about anything and should never be denied (*)

xc the last sentence.
// Any chance of a 'not guilty, however slim, is still better than pleading guilty and simply being convicted and punished.//

Jury trial acquittal used to be 67% so it worf a go
BUT
if you have gone for trial then pleas of mitigation are frequently ignored.

[I strongly object to the idea of: say you have done something you havent done because the outcome may otherwise be worse...I said this to an afro-caribbean in 1980 and still boil with rage that the system did and still does this]

[Peter Pedant]

(*) oh and cases have been reversed or thrown out on appeal because the defence wasnt heard.
oh yeah when did that start?
1330 - Edward II's regicides ( the fella with the red hot poker up the hoo-hoo) - their acts of attainder ( dont want to go into that, technical) were reversed as their defence was not heard.

actually boys and gurlz, acts of attainder ( still technical ,dont want to go into that) sort of fell out of fashion 1640 and were replaced by impeachment
saying just saying for chrissakes

[andy-hughes]

anne - // Hands up if you are a toppler ? //

I think the come-lately cod-concience of citizens who have lived in a city that would not exist without the largesse of Mr Colston is utterly appalling.

There is a debate to be had about the merit of continuing to display the statue of someone who, for all his generous philanthropy, made his fortune from slaves, but this was not a debate, this was mindless yobbery and destruction from people old enough to know better.

You cannot pretend your city's heritage does not exist, but you can discuss how you wish to move forward in dealing with it.

Destruction like this does not obliterate history, it simply turns a blind eye to the bits it does not like, and that is not the way a civilised society should be operating.

[Spicerack]

Have a heart, ttt. These poor downtrodden people are still using their 'slave names'...(I think)

[Arrods]

At least, if found guilty, they won’t have their ‘punishment’ reduced if they had pleaded guilty. I guess that means a slap on the wrist instead of a tap on the wrist?

[Peter Pedant]

slapper tapper
as NJ might well agree- - - you never can tell with judges

[Peter Pedant]

Romans did it - reprise of a few years ago here - damnatio memoriae
My fave C Gallus was subject to this sortta 26BC

It is SAID - (legunt - dicitur)- that Augustus ( per Suetonius) was referring to this when Aug said, you can forgive your enemies but if you forgive your frenz, it looks like weakness. (*)

WE were accused of forging C Gallus' poetry ( 10 lines) when it was found and Robt Anderson esq said regally: "There is no one on this site who can write first century Latin" - wh kinda settled that. Imperially I shouldda said

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20538645

TRISTIA NEQUITIA LYCORI TUA.... I remember it coming out at me from the sand ( and completely missed the crucial Lycori)

(*) C Gallus sin? he set up statues to himself instead of Augustus...
A trilingual inscription is here
https://www.judaism-and-rome.org/trilingual-inscription-cornelius-gallus-cil-iii-14147
where Gallus overblows HIS feats rather than Augustus ( really bad move) . The statue is thrown down and the stela ends up under the altar of the Temple of Hadrian in Philae

This is a note on the throwing down of statues in Roman times and what happens to the bits

[fcc]

The devil finds work for idle hands,if they had to work for a living they would find something better to do in their spare time,but sadly they will walk away free.

[Gromit]

There were three events.
1. The toppling of the statue from its plinth.
2. The rolling or dragging to the dock.
3. The plunging of the statue into the dock.

The whole thing probably involved up to 50 people.
It could be argued that the four defendants could not have accomplished this deed without many others who are not on trial. To blame the damage on just four people is clearly incorrect.

[Spicerack]

Law can't work like that, gromit.
If only 1 out of 3 bank robbers were caught, you can't let him off cos otherwise it doesn't seem fair.
Don't worry about them. They'll be let off cos they're upper middle class like the Judge and the PTB that decide the outcome. (usually before these trials start) ;-)