People who damage war memorials could face ten years in prison under new possible laws, this follows after the Cenotaph and a statue of Winston Churchill were boarded up amid fears that they could be targeted by demonstrators again after last week’s shocking scenes.
The statue of Sir Winston Churchill was vandalised with the letters BLM standing for Black Lives Matter, the statue also had a black line put through Churchill and ‘was a racist’ written under it. The cenotaph faced similar attacks when one rioter tried to set the Union flag on fire, and another wrote the letter BLM on it.
According to the Telegraph the Home Secretary Priti Patel is discussing plans to make it easier to prosecute people who desecrates such monuments.
The move comes as 125 Conservative MPs backed a Desecration of War Memorials Bill which could be presented to Parliament on June 23 by backbenchers Jonathan Gullis and James Sunderland, a former Army officer.
However, the Labour Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy questioned whether there was a need for new legislation he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “It is already the case that you can get up to ten years for criminal damage under the existing legislation, whether we need a specific piece of legislation for memorials of course we will look at. But you can already get 10 years in prison for criminal damage.”
Mr Lammy also accused the PM of ‘deflecting’ from other issues.
He said: “Boris Johnson sent out eight tweets, I think it was, on Friday on Winston Churchill and statues.
“He’s never tweeted eight times in a day on coronavirus, he’s never tweeted eight times in a day on the Windrush review or what he’s going to do about it, or on the review that David Cameron asked me to do on disproportionality in the criminal justice system and what he’s going to do about it.”
In recent days activists have drawn up a hit list of statues to target across the country and counter protesters have come out to defend the historic monuments.
If a change in the law is brought in, could mean that those who vandalise such monuments but at a cost of less than £5,000 face a crown court hearing and a sentence of up to ten years.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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