Pair finds guilty for damaging Van Gogh painting’s frame

• Just Stop Oil protesters glued themselves to frame of Van Gogh artwork.
• Emily Brocklebank, 23, and Louis McKechnie, 22, were judged responsible for criminal damage.
• The frame of Peach Trees In Blossom at London’s Courtauld Gallery was damaged for £2,000.

After gluing themselves to the frame of a Vincent Van Gogh artwork, two Just Stop Oil protesters were judged responsible for inflicting criminal damage to it.

The frame of Peach Trees In Blossom at London’s Courtauld Gallery was damaged by Emily Brocklebank, 23, and Louis McKechnie, 22, for around £2,000 worth of damage.

Brocklebank had stated to the judge: “I didn’t believe I would do much harm. Glue peels away.”

Neeta Minhas, the district judge, however, deemed the damage to be “serious.”

Brocklebank, a resident of Leeds’ Yeadon neighborhood, was given a 21-day sentence that was suspended for six months and was also subject to a six-week curfew that was electronically monitored.

Judge Minhas declared the following when delivering her decision at Westminster Magistrates’ Court: “An 18th Century frame that is hundreds of years old has been irreversibly ruined.

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She added that the painting had “significant, historical and art value” and that the damage was “not minor, insignificant, temporary or trivial”.

On June 30, Brocklebank and McKechnie, two Weymouth, Dorset, residents, applied adhesive to the picture in the gallery on the Strand in the heart of London.

The specifics of McKechnie’s punishment have not yet been made public.

After being accused of “distracting the guards,” Xavier Gonzales-Trimmer, 21, initially faced the same allegation, but this was later withdrawn.

He did, however, get a fine for missing a court date for an earlier hearing.

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