I cannot condone the damage...but I cannot pretend any sense of loss for the statue...it was a personal affront

Bristol Mayor’s protest response as Boris condemns ‘criminal act’.

- BEN GLAZE, ADAM ASPINALL and TOM PETTIFOR

THE statue of a slave trader toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest is no loss, the city’s Mayor has said.

Activists tore down the bronze memorial to Edward Colston and dumped it in the harbour during demonstrations in Bristol triggered by the death of George Floyd.

The city’s Labour Mayor, Marvin Rees, said: “I am of Jamaican heritage and I cannot pretend that I have any real sense of loss for the statue and I cannot pretend it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol, the city in which I grew up.”

He said that “as an elected politician, obviously I cannot condone the damage” to the statue. Asked if those responsible should be charged, he added: “That is up to the criminal justice system.”

Bristol’s police chief defended officers for not intervening to stop protesters pulling down the statue. Chief Constable Andy Marsh said it would have led to a “very violent confrontation”.

A petition to replace the statue with one for civil rights campaigner Paul Stephenson passed 15,000 signatures last night. Dr. Stephenson led the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963, which overturned a ban on ethnic minorities working on the city’s buses and influenced the creation of the Race Relations Act. A school in the city named after Colston removed its own statue of the slave trader.

Colston’s Girls’ School said there were “ongoing discussions” about the use of his name.