Four people who were charged for allegedly toppling a statue in Bristol during last year’s Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests have pleaded not guilty. The four people, who appeared at Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday, were accused of damaging the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century merchant, which was toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol in June 2020, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. The four defendants—Rhian Graham, 29, Milo Ponsford, 25, Jake Skuse, 32, and Sage Willoughby, 21—were charged in December with causing criminal damage. After hearing their pleas of not guilty, judge Peter Blair set Dec. 13 as the start date for their trial, which is expected to last seven or eight days. During last summer’s BLM riots, protesters in the UK defaced a statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square, taping a “Black Lives Matter” sign to it and spraying it with graffiti. …