Two Just Stop Oil activists have been given jail sentences for dousing Vincent Van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers with tomato soup, The Guardian reports.
Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for damaging the frame of the artwork at the National Gallery in London in 2022, which is valued at £10,000. The second defendant, 22-year-old Anna Holland, was given 20 months for the same offence but will only serve half of her sentence in custody.
Passing sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Judge Christopher Hehir told them:
“You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation. The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass.”
The defendants hugged and kissed from the public gallery from the dock before being led to their cells.
In October 2022, Plummer and Holland went to room 43 of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and threw two cans of Heinz soup on an 1888 painting, one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, before gluing themselves to the wall beneath it.
In July, after deliberating for three hours, a jury found them guilty of criminal damage. Judge Hehir told them to be “prepared, practically and emotionally, to go to prison.”
Plummer was also sentenced to three months in prison for interfering with national infrastructure by taking part in a slow march along Earls Court Road in west London in November 2023. Her co-defendants in the case, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, received suspended sentences and community service sentences.
Plummer gave a 20-minute speech to the judge in which she cited Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as examples of people who were prosecuted while fighting for justice.
“On October 14, 2022 and in November 2023 I made the choices to take actions that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution. I made those choices because I believe that non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool that people have in order to bring about the rapid change required to protect life from the accelerating climate emergency and the political decisions being made that pour fuel on the flames and which sentence us all to a catastrophic future. Whilst of course there are reasons why my life and the lives of people I love and care for would be easier if I don’t receive prison sentences today I don’t intend to go into detail about these, my choice today is to accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile, knowing that I have found peace in doing what I can to defend countless millions of innocent people suffering and dying.”
The Just Stop Oil movement became the talk of the spring of 2022: throughout April, activists staged protests at fuel terminals in England, “blocking the entry, refuelling and exit of fuel transport vehicles.” The activists themselves claim that their actions have led to “widespread fuel shortages at petrol stations.” The authorities deny this.
Just Stop Oil participants formulate the main goal of the actions as follows: to raise citizens’ awareness of the serious impact of the oil industry on climate change. The group demands that the authorities stop all new fuel supply projects and halt all licences for the development of new fields.
According to the activists, refusing fuel will help to “cut” energy bills and prove that international climate commitments for the UK are not just a sound bite.
