1 week ago
22
Reuters
A man has been charged with criminal damage after graffiti was sprayed on the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, police have said.
Caspar San Giorgio, 38, of no fixed address was arrested shortly after 04:00 on Friday. He was taken into custody and charged on Saturday morning.
He has been remanded into custody and is due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court later this morning.
In the early hours of Friday, graffiti including "Never again is Now", "Free Palestine" and "Globalise the Intifada" appeared on the statue of the former prime minister in central London.
In December, both the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police announced anyone found using "globalise the intifada" would face arrest.
A representative of 10 Downing Street said the graffiti that appeared on Friday was "completely abhorrent", adding that "the perpetrator must be held to account".
A Home Office spokesperson said: "Sir Winston Churchill is a figure of great national pride. The vile vandals defacing this statue are a disgrace."
The wartime prime minister's statue has been vandalised several times in the past, including during protests.
In June 2020, it was scrawled with graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist, during a Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US.
Later that year, an activist for environmental group Extinction Rebellion was ordered to pay more than £1,500 for defacing the statue by painting "racist" on its plinth during a climate protest.
The 12ft (3.6m) monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the wartime prime minister's widow Lady Churchill.
