We have been accused of erasing history – but that’s impossible. All we did was shine a light in places people don’t want lights to shine
On 7 June 2020, I was part of a group of protesters who pulled down a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston and threw it into the Bristol harbour. I have never felt and will never feel that what we did was wrong, and I have never thought I was a criminal. But it’s a beautiful thing that a jury has sat through all the evidence, and come to the same conclusion.
I had a good feeling about the trial throughout, but I had to prepare for both outcomes – it could have gone either way. Our defence rested on the argument that we had indeed pulled down the statue during a Black Lives Matter protest, but that given Colston’s role in the Royal African Company, which enslaved tens of thousands and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people, this wasn’t a case of criminal damage.
