Just Stop Oil activists jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers | Just Stop Oil

Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for throwing tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers after one of them told a judge she would “accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile”.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork’s frame at the National Gallery in London in 2022. Her codefendant, Anna Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence, but will serve only half in custody.

Passing sentence at Southwark crown court on Friday, the judge, Christopher Hehir, told them: “You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers and your arrogance in assuming otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation.”

In October 2022, Plummer and Holland had gone to room 43 of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and hurled two tins of Heinz soup over the 1888 painting, one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, before gluing themselves to the wall beneath it.

In July, they were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberations. Judge Hehir told them at the time to be “prepared, in practical and emotional terms, to go to prison”.

Plummer was further sentenced to three months in jail for interfering with national infrastructure by taking part in a slow march along Earls Court Road in west London in November 2023. Her codefendants in that case, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, received suspended sentences and community work orders.

Plummer gave a 20-minute address to the judge in mitigation, in which she cited Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as examples of people who had been criminalised while fighting for justice.

“On 14 October 2022 and in November 2023 I made the choices to take actions that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution,” she said. “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.”

She added: “I chose to peacefully disrupt a business-as-usual system that is unjust, dishonest and murderous.”

In passing his sentence, Hehir said he took into account not only the damage actually caused to the frame, but the potential for even greater damage to be caused to the painting had the soup seeped behind the glass that covered it.

Discussing the potential sentence earlier in the hearing, Hehir said: “This seems to me a case where section 63 of the sentencing code is relevant because it requires in assessing the seriousness of the offending to consider not only the harm that was caused but the harm that could have been caused. That harm could have been irreversible damage or even destruction of the painting itself if soup could seep through.”

Hehir noted that gallery staff had immediately taken the painting away to examine it and ensure it had come to no serious harm.