A Dutch activist who spray-painted pro-Palestine slogans onto Sir Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square has been found not guilty of criminal damage, prompting criticism of UK’s justice system.

Olax Outis, also known as Caspar San Giorgi, 39, climbed the bronze monument shortly before 4am on 27 February. Wearing a red boiler suit that read “I support Palestine Action,” he used a ladder and red spray paint to scrawl “Free Palestine,” “Stop the Genocide,” “Zionist war criminal,” “Globalise the Intifada,” “Never Again Is Now” and inverted red triangles across the statue and plinth.

Prosecutors said the graffiti caused more than £7,000 in cleaning and restoration costs. Outis, who represented himself at Southwark Crown Court, told jurors the paint was washable and therefore caused no lasting damage. He described the act as a message to Parliament over Britain’s stance on Gaza and said he was “preventing a crime.” A jury acquitted him on Monday.

The verdict has drawn sharp public and political reaction. Commentator Heidi Bachram called the outcome “a nasty joke,” noting that Outis had traveled from the Netherlands to carry out the protest and later remarked in court that he should have done something “more spectacular.” Conservative MP James McMurdock questioned how a person who commits criminal damage can be found not guilty of that offence.

Downing Street had earlier condemned the vandalism as “completely abhorrent.” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is now considering stronger legal protections for national monuments.

Many argue that when a court treats documented vandalism of a war leader’s monument as a mere message rather than a crime, it signals that certain protests enjoy a practical immunity the rest of the public does not. That is not justice; it is selective enforcement dressed up as principle and with the whole issue of the well documented two-tier policing in the UK, this case underscores this new reality for the citizens of the country.