Man charged with criminal damage after Churchill statue sprayed with graffiti | UK news
A 38-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage to the statue of Winston Churchill outside the Houses of Parliament after graffiti labeling the former prime minister as a “Zionist war criminal” was sprayed on.
Metropolitan police arrested Caspar San Giorgio, of no fixed address, shortly after 4am on Friday. The man, who was charged in the early hours of Saturday morning, is expected to appear at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court shortly.
The bronze statue in Parliament Square in central London was also sprayed with red paint with phrases such as “stop genocide” and “liberate Palestine”. Other graffiti read “never again now” and “globalize the intifada.”
Last December, the Met and Greater Manchester police said anyone chanting “globalize the intifada” could be arrested. San Giorgio was charged with criminal damage.
The decision by the two police forces follows two terror attacks at Manchester’s Heaton Park synagogue in October last year and Bondi Beach in Australia in December.
Following the attack, the statue was cordoned off and cleared on Friday morning.
Shortly after the incident a Greater London Authority spokesman said: “We are appalled by this vandalism of the statue of Sir Winston Churchill and work is underway to remove the graffiti as soon as possible.”
Downing Street also said the apparent vandalism of the statue was “utterly disgusting”.
A No 10 spokesman said: “Churchill was a great Briton. This government will always defend our values and the perpetrator must be held to account.”
Chruchill’s statue has been vandalized many times in the past, including during protests. The graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist was written during the Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US in June 2020.
In October the same year, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 after defacing a statue with the word “racist” on its plinth during a climate protest.
Created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, the 3.6-metre monument was unveiled in 1973 by the former prime minister’s wife, Clementine Churchill. It is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square belonging to many of the well-known statesmen, including Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.
