One of the organizers of the Black Lives Matter protest, which garnered global attention when the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was toppled in Bristol, has admitted to fraud. Xahra Saleem, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position after an investigation by Avon and Somerset Police revealed that £30,000 raised from donors on a GoFundMe page called ‘BristBLM’ had gone missing. The crowdfunding page was originally set up by Saleem to raise funds for face masks and other equipment for the protest, but it was agreed that any excess funds would go to charity Changing Your Mindset Ltd. However, it is alleged that Saleem used the money for personal gain. Saleem, previously known as Yvonne Maina, has changed her plea from not guilty to guilty for the first charge, while the second charge has been discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service. Saleem is scheduled to be sentenced at the end of October.
The incident took place on June 7, 2020, during protests related to the death of George Floyd in the US and the subsequent global Black Lives Matter movement. Four protesters, known as the Colston Four, were later cleared of criminal damage connected to the toppling of the statue. The charity, Changing Your Mindset, has since closed down and stated that it is unlikely to retrieve the missing funds. The toppling of Colston’s statue led to the removal of his name from the city. Edward Colston, a prominent English merchant involved in the slave trade, trafficked around 80,000 slaves across the Atlantic during his tenure at the Royal African Company.
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