The Times UK writes, two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh's Sunflowers and damaging its antique frame
Our Take, With Doug Sheridan
The Times UK writes, two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh's Sunflowers and damaging its antique frame. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, both 22, threw two tins of Kraft Heinz tomato soup at the painting at the National Gallery and glued themselves to the wall in October 2022 in the group's high-profile stunt.
Plummer was jailed for two years and Holland for 20 months. The max sentence for the offence is ten years' imprisonment. The bail conditions stipulate that they must not carry glue, paint or any adhesive substance in a public place and must not visit any galleries or museums.
While the painting, which was completed in 1888 and is worth up to £72.5MM, was protected by a glass cover, prosecutors believe the soup, which is said to have acted as a "paint stripper", may have caused £10,000 worth of damage to its 17th-century Italian frame.
The court was told that the pair had visited the museum a day before the incident to carry out reconnaissance and had bought the soup from supermarket.
In a statement read to the jury, Isabella Kocum, a frame conservator, said she was "shocked and dismayed by the extent of corrosion this tomato soup" caused to the "exquisite antique frame".
She told the court, "The frame was specifically chosen for Van Gogh's painting because of the matching colouration. I remain amazed at how corrosive the soup was to the frame. Even once the majority of the soup had been removed, I was alarmed to see that the remainder was acting like a paint stripper in front of my eyes."
Prior to the sentencing, more than a hundred artists, curators and historians called for the activists to be spared jail because they had upheld a "centuries-old tradition of calling on our social conscience through art."
Plummer, who studied at the University of Manchester and represented herself at the trial, told the court that she decided to use tomato soup "because it would stand out" and that it "symbolised the link between the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis"
Plummer and Holland said they were taking instructions from someone in Just Stop Oil but refused to identify the person. Plummer told the jury she loved the painting. In her closing speech, she claimed that she was 'sounding an alarm bell" on climate change and invoked the example of the suffragettes and the civil rights movement in the US.
She said, “I don't think that action like this fits the black and white letter of the law. Sometimes morality is different from the law, different from justice, different from legal directions. We caused some damage to the frame. The painting was returned to the gallery the same day.
Our Take: Note the self-comparison to the struggle for universal sufferage. That's what they've been told—civilization's means of lifting 3 billion people out of poverty in a matter of decades is an injustice to all of mankind. They've literally no idea what the truth is.
The problem is our children have been brainwashed that the world is going to end because of climate change Children have even committed suicide because of the anxieties that have been indoctrinated into their brains
It's about time these brainwashed fanatics were made accountable for their ridiculous antics. Maybe spending time in prison will allow them an opportunity to think on the pointless harm they themselves are doing, while doing the bidding of the globalists who wish to become rulers of the world. I'm all out of sympathy for these activists, who should spend more time researching the people they work for, instead of blindly believing and obeying them. They got off too easy, IMO.