Charlie Gilmour appeal rejected

PINK Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s son has lost an appeal against his jail sentence for violent disorder.

Charlie Gilmour, 21, of Billingshurst, was jailed for 16 months over his part in a demonstration in London.

He was seen hanging from the Union flag on the Cenotaph, and leaping onto the bonnet of a Jaguar that was part of a royal convoy.

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Gilmour, a Cambridge University history student, was one of thousands of protesters in Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square on December 9 last year, demonstrating against the university fee increase.

Gilmour was originally sentenced by a judge at Kingston Crown Court, who said his behaviour had been ‘outrageous and deeply offensive’.

He was also found to have thrown a rubbish bin at the Jaguar, and kicked at the window of Topshop’s Oxford Street store.

On Friday, Court of Appeal judges rejected his claim that the sentence had been ‘unduly harsh’.

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His barrister had told Lord Justice Hughes, Mr Justice Cranston and Mr Justice Hickinbottom that Gilmour had been under the influence of drink and drugs, and did not realise he was swinging from the Cenotaph.

The court heard that he had succumbed to addiction after being rejected by his biological father - writer Heathcote Williams - and had taken LSD and Valium in the hours leading up to the incident.

Appeal judges heard that he had ‘successfully reformed and rehabilitated himself’ and had dealt with his drug and alcohol problems.

However, Lord Justice Hughes said they could not conclude that the sentence was ‘either manifestly excessive or wrong in principle’.

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