[The petition] set up on the 38 degrees website three years ago, and was one of many online petitions set up over the years that called for the statue to be removed. But this one gained little traction - it had barely 100 signatures in three years until a week ago. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/how-city-failed-remove-edward-4211771 This is my source. Happy to conceed to you if you can show otherwise.
I'm not sure how that stands as evidence of anything - how many people were aware of the petition at the time?
It's fantastic to see so many observers concerned about jurisprudence. Some budding QCs on here, well done BBSers. Unless you think a drunken hooligan urinating on a memorial to a murdered policeman has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, I can't help but wonder why else you'd want to bring it up and compare it with a crime committed hundreds of miles away...
Have a guess who the Mayor was when it was last debated and couldn’t agree on the wording and the Council pulled the plug?
I think a kid went to jail for urinating on a war memorial in Sheffield. But he pee'd on it - he choose to pee on the memorial his motivation was to pee on the memorial - as opposed to this bloke who went to the loo just in a stupid place.- his motivation was to empty his bladder. I don't argue with the sentence - I disagree with the anonymity of the deliberate statue destroyer vs the lack of anonymity for this bloke who did something stupid.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Lee Johnston I'm sorry but my knowledge of Bristol is limited tot he fact they have an interesting bridge, two football teams and historic links to the slave trade. Also just outside Bristol was where Dr Dolittle was film with Rex Harrison.
Because if he merely 'did something stupid' without political intent, no far right nut jobs will want to go after him in violent retaliatory vigilantism will they?
I'd agree that intentionally pi55ing on a war memorial should carry a custodial sentence, I would have no issue with that but I thought the sentence of the muppet in London was disproportionate. I'm with you in regards of the anonymity and I might be taking a cynical view but I don't know why anonymity was granted unless it was to spare the blushes of somebody in a public position.
It was Marvin Rees, the current Mayor. Google him & hopefully you’ll see why it’s relevant to your post about the petition.
Mobs do plenty of things I disagree with. There are thousands and thousands of criminals up to no good, I don't agree with them. This criminal (which he is, admittedly), the guy taking part in an effort to remove a statue of a slaver, well.... I'm not against it, no. I can't say fairer than that pal. It would be against the law and mob rule if people chased after a known nonce and kicked the **** out of him/her and I'd back their actions too. Sometimes the law is an ass.
Ok - I see the argument - I don't agree with it. It's not like it was the stature of Churchill or the cenotaph. Unless this character was also involved in attacking them too. I also think it's just as likely someone gets targeted by unstable folk for peeing on a policeman's memorial given the media have portrayed this as peeing on the memorial - not peeing at the side of a memorial.
Finest case in point, the suffragettes broke the law. They were clearly, unequivocally on the correct side of history, as will be those defacing monuments to slave traders even if they are breaking the law.