James Cook statue ‘lookout’ fined $2000 for damage

A self-styled social activist who stood guard while a statue of Captain Cook was defaced has been fined $2000.

Charmaine Morrison-Mills. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

A self-styled social activist who stood guard for a NSW Greens staffer while she defaced a statue of Captain Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park last month has been fined $2000 after losing her bid to escape­ a conviction.

Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson told Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court that Charmaine Morrison-Mills, 27, had deliberately used the cover of darkness to “damage a protected place” and that her “serious” crime “required a conviction”.

Morrison-Mills and her co-accused­, Xiaoran Shi, were charged with destroying or damaging­ property after spray-painting “sovereignty never ceded” and “no pride in genocide” on the statue of Captain Cook just hours after a Black Lives Matter rally had ended in Sydney on June 15. Both women pleaded guilty.

“She was acting as a lookout and carried the bags there and back,” Ms Atkinson told the court on Thursday. “It was part of a planned criminal activity.

The Captain Cook statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Picture: AAP

“No one was around, it was dark, and it was clear from the actions­ depicted in the CCTV that they did not want to be seen while doing it.”

Defence lawyer Carolina Soto said Morrison-Mills should be spared a conviction, partly because she now required weekly psychological help due to being strip-searched while in police custody ­for 15 hours.

Ms Soto said the community support worker, who holds a master­’s degree in social work from Western Sydney University, had also been subjected to sexual and physical threats online in the wake of her arrest.

“She never anticipated the negative media,” Ms Soto said. “There’s nothing I can say that will justify her behaviour (but) under­pinning her behaviour was a strong sense of justice.”

Police prosecutor Ernest Chang said the CCTV footage shown in court proved the damage caused to the historic statue was “not trivial” and that it had taken three attempts by council workers to remove the graffiti. He said the “wearing of hoodies” by the women indicated the vandalism was not a “chance or opportunistic offence”, but rather a “deliberate and serious act”.

“Her (Morrison-Mills’s) role was to hand the spray cans to her co-accused and then keep a lookout,” he said. “Three sides of the statue were damaged … They both had a part to play.”

In rejecting Morrison-Mills’s bid to stop the court from recording a conviction, Ms Atkinson said there was no indication to suggest the offender’s “employment is in jeopardy” or that a conviction would likely prevent her from being accepted into the Australian Association of Social Workers.

She said Morrison-Mills was an “intelligent, idealistic young woman” but t it was not the court’s place to “comment on the matters” which she wanted to raise.

“Ms Morrison-Mills is before the court for breaches of criminal law,” she said. “It is not approp­riate to deal with the matter by dismissing the charges. It can’t be said the damage was trivial at all.”

Morrison-Mills will also pay the City of Sydney $450 to cover half the cost of cleaning the statue. Shi is expected to pay the rest.