by Two Just Stop Oil activists who threw soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece Sunflowers in an “idiotic” stunt have been jailed.
Anna Holland, 22, and Phoebe Plummer, 23, were convicted of criminal damage after sending the contents of two tins of Heinz tomato soup at the world-famous painting which hangs in the National Gallery in London.
Staff members rushed to remove the Sunflowers from the wall and were relieved to discover that the artwork had been damaged by its protective glass screen. But soup fell on the 17th Century Italianate frame, causing damage estimated to be worth £10,000.
At Southwark crown court on Friday, Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced Plummer to two years and three months in prison and jailed Holland for 20 months, calling the stunt “stupidity” and concluding it “could not have been could care less” if Sunflowers were damaged.
“Your foolish and criminal actions have permanently damaged the frame”, he said.
“The painting itself, Sunflowers, could be seriously damaged or even destroyed. Your position at trial was to dismiss the risk of what you did.”
He added that Van Gogh’s work “belongs to the whole world and that his work is part of the shared cultural treasures of humanity.”
“You had no right to do what you did with Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the harshest condemnation.”
Judge Hehir was responsible in July for jailing other eco-activists for four and five years each for planning to close large sections of the M25 in protest.
The sentences are believed to be the longest ever in Britain for a case involving peaceful protest.
During the appeasement, Plummer gave a long speech, calling herself a “political prisoner” and comparing her actions to the campaigns of the suffragettes.
The judge told her: “This is not helping you – there may be an audience you’re playing to, but it’s not really helping you.”
And he added: “Telling an English judge that we have political prisoners in this jurisdiction when you think of people suffering in dungeons under tyranny all over the world … what you are doing is the thing which many people would consider an offensive comparison.”
In his sentencing comments, the judge went further, saying she was “rude, self-deprecating and abusive”.
Holland and Plummer staged their gallery protest on 14 October 2022 as they sought to end UK licenses for oil drilling.
They entered the gallery pretending to be people interested in art, and went to the room where the work of Van Gogh is.
After loitering in the area and waiting for a space in front of the Sunflowers to clear, Holland and Plummer removed their jackets to reveal white T-shirts emblazoned with the Just Stop Oil slogan.
They each took out a can of soup and threw it towards the precious painting, before proceeding to glue themselves to the gallery wall.
Prosecutors said the stunt was planned for maximum publicity, and a supporter was on hand to record the incident as Plummer shouted out: “What’s worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? It’s worth more than justice?
“Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and our people?
“The cost of living crisis is part of the oil cost crisis.”
Gasses were audible when the first soup was poured, before calls to security, and the painting was protected from damage by a glass screen.
However, the court heard that £10,000 of damage was caused to the frame’s paintwork as soup fell down.
Plummer and Holland insisted they knew the artwork was covered by a glass screen, and did not believe they would cause any damage.
But the judge replied: “Neither of the defendants are stupid, they knew that if you throw two cans of soup on a painting then of course soup will get on the frame.”
Artists and art historians signed an open letter asking Judge Hehir to spare the activists a prison term, suggesting that the stunt was itself a work of art and that the soup splatter was reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s creation.
Plummer was also sentenced for her part in a slow march protest near the A4 in west London, which brought traffic to a standstill.
She, along with Chiara Sarti, 25, and Daniel Hall were convicted of “disrupting key national infrastructure” under the Public Order Act 2023, using legal provisions designed by the last Conservative government to crack down on disruptive environmental protests .
Plummer, Sarti and Hall walked slowly along Earl’s Court Road, leading to long backs to the Hammersmith flyover.
Judge Hehir called them “a bunch of idiots”, and said the location had been “carefully chosen to maximize disruption”.
He said an ambulance containing patients in need of critical care, along with delivery drivers, buses and commuters, was detained.
“Anyone caught in a stunt like this is likely to be scared, or distressed, or both”, he said, calling the incident a “meaningless, self-absorbed and self-righteous violation of the law”.
In a mitigation statement, Plummer said: “I made the choice to take the action that I knew was likely to lead to arrest and prosecution.
“I made choices because I believe that non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool available to ordinary people to make the rapid social change needed to protest life from the climate expeditious and to reduce the resulting suffering. emergency.”
Judge Hehir said he accepts that Plummer has fundamental beliefs, but added: “You have made up your mind that you are entitled to commit crimes as you feel – they are not.”
He sentenced Sarti and Hall to a 12-month community order with 100 hours of community service and imposed a criminal behavior order on both defendants.
Sarti, a PhD student at Cambridge University, was ordered to undergo 15 days of rehabilitation sessions, and both defendants were ordered to pay £500 each towards the cost of their trial.
A squad of Metropolitan Police officers was deployed to the courthouse for an unprecedented security operation for the sentencing hearings, with barriers blocking traffic outside the building and security fences on the footpaths.
Anyone entering the courtroom must also undergo an additional security check, including a finger pat-down.
Plummer, of Clapham, and Holland, of Newcastle, were found guilty at trial of criminal damage.
Plummer, Sarti, from Cambridge, and Hall, from Cowden in Kent, were found guilty by a jury of interfering with the use or operation of key national infrastructure.
The court heard that Plummer is appealing his slow march conviction, but does not intend to contest his conviction for the painting.
She was sentenced to two years in prison for the attack on Van Gogh, and a further three months for the offense of slow marching.
