Berkshire environmental protestor fined for painting attack
Simon Bramwell from Twyford near Reading was fined for gluing himself to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper
A Berkshire environmental protester has been fined for gluing himself to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
Five Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists were ordered to pay £486 each for criminal damage at City of London Magistrates’ Court, over a demonstration at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, central London, on July 5 2022.
District Judge William Nelson told the court that Jessica Agar, 22, Simon Bramwell, 50, Caspar Hughes, 51, Lucy Porter, 47 and Tristan Strange, 40, caused ÂŁ180 of damage, while leading the venue to close for the day.
The painting, which was unharmed, depicts the scene when Jesus announced that one of his 12 apostles would betray him while dining with them before he was crucified.
All five defendants glued their hands to the painting’s border, while Hughes previously admitted spraying “No New Oil” on a wall beneath the artwork.
On Wednesday, following a two-day trial, District Judge Nelson sentenced them all equally on the basis that each had been “accessories” to Hughes’ additional act through their joint planning of the protest.
He told the central London court that the “primary cause” of their protest “was to gain media attention and not to cause damage to a work of art”.
District Judge Nelson added that the defendants “took efforts to minimise the damage they would cause” by experimenting with gluing themselves to different types of wood beforehand, and using soluble spray paint.
They also targeted the Royal Academy of Arts because it had lower footfall than other galleries which would minimise the risk of “things getting out of control”, he said.
Outlining the reason for the terms of their punishment, the judge said: “I accept that the damage value if you take away the sofa is only £180.
“This is not a huge amount of money.
“However, the value of the damage is not the only barometer of which one measures its significance.
“The gallery had to shut for a day and rope off the area, and the repairs required proper, managed, thought-out conservation work by experts to ensure that the intrinsic value of the painting was the same.”
The activists had also previously been accused of causing £539.40 of damage to a nearby sofa, but the judge concluded that they were not responsible for this because CCTV evidence showed they were “nowhere near” it during the protest.
Bramwell, of Twyford, Berkshire; Hughes, of Exeter, Devon; and Porter, of Malvern, Worcestershire, attended the second day of their trial, while Agar, of Royston, Hertfordshire; and Strange of Swindon appeared via videolink.
They said the aim of their gallery protest had been to put pressure on the Government to halt new oil and gas licences in the UK and to encourage the directors, employees and members of art institutions to join JSO protests.