Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A 41-YEAR-OLD MAN has been arrested by police in London over criminal damage to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
The portrait – which has been defaced with spray-paint – had been on display in the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey.
Scotland Yard said the man was taken to a police station in central London where he remains in custody.
The oil-on-canvas portrait – measuring 11 feet in width and 9 feet in height – had been on display for several weeks.
It has since been removed.
The campaign group Fathers4Justice said it understood that the man, and another person involved in the defacing of the portrait, were writing a message to the Queen begging for her assistance in securing father’s rights to mark Father’s Day this Sunday.
It said the two were members of the group, but that they were not participating in a formal or endorsed Fathers4Justice campaign.
The portrait, painted by artist Ralph Heimans, was based on a sitting with the Queen last year – placing her in a imaginary setting where she stands on the exact spot where she was crowned in 1953, while the Abbey is closed at night.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
No doubt he’ll get more time in jail than rapists and bankers….cause you can’t be doing that :O
He’ll probbaly get some sort of community sentence.
Community service for wrecking a painting, that’s acceptable, however you can guarantee there’ll be more media coverage of this than the undoubted number of rapists who walked free in Britain this week.
Serious imbalance in society in how we view crimes against persons versus crimes against property.
Rapists walking free? Can you name just one?
Not the UK I admit but unless you’ve been living in a cave your whole life you’ve been missing out my friend, don’t make me come back with piles and piles of links for you and ruin your day :)
You said, “undoubted number of rapists that walked free in Britain this week,” and it turns out there aren’t any.
No problem accepting that it may have occasionally occurred in the past, but I found your comment a little disingenuous.
Please don’t ruin my day with links, it’s raining here as it is!
I’m highlighting the hypocrisy of the criminal justice system. You may recall a man being jailed during the Tottenham riots for 6 months for stealing one bottle of water.
Now just google “rapist walks free uk” there and you’ll see some articles which are very recent. Crimes against property are crimes against inanimate objects, not people with feelings. Yet in some ways society seems to view the former type of crime as far more serious in some cases. That’s perverse.
I’m sure there is .. Their system is as bad as ours . We just don’t hear about it unless you read daily mail .
Larry murphy – simples!
Larry murphy – simples
More? When have bankers done jail time, or even been charged?
Mr bean and whistlers mother springs to mind!!
Classic comedy. But not as good as his trip through France.
Hardly productive to his cause…
It was an amazing piece of work, maybe some people don’t like the subject matter, but screw them.
To answer Martin rape goes unpunished in Ireland and in most of the world so to say Britain has rapist roaming the streets is unjustified. What this man has done is defaced something that someone has spent their time working on. It’s not the way to grab positive attention for your campaign. A man that wants to be taken seriously as a father should not go around behaving like a thug and vandalising property.
He should get a gree Holiday for Ibiza instead of jail!?
Mean free Holiday!
Cruel and inhuman punishments ceased in Britain when they abandoned the Birch . No way would he be sentenced to Ibiza
It’s the Queen for gods sake who cares good on him I say.
The guy is obviously desperate. There are lots of fathers who have simply walked away from their kids. I wonder what his story is? Why can’t he see his kids?
Maybe they are inbred no marks, raised by someone else and can only be visited by royal disappointment!
he should get a portrait of himself for free
He will, taken by a lovely police photographer.
He will John…with a set of numbers under him…front and side profile.
To hell with her and her kind , the point of the story seems to have been side-stepped , this Sunday is Fathers Day but 10s of thousands of children all over her domain will not be able to visit with their Dads because of the bias and corporate interest that sways decision making in the family court . So screw her and her portrait the cost of which would probably pay a teacher for a few months , these oligarchs have no interest in our children except personal gain and it feeds the whole way down the line to their representatives ….that includes the cut and paste journalists who fail to report on the real story behind the headline………shame
Hardly appealing to the Queens better nature. Fool. If anything this guy has put them back a few steps.
“the man, and another person involved in the defacing of the portrait, were writing a message to the Queen begging for her assistance in securing father’s rights to mark Father’s Day this Sunday”.
By doing what they did has, at the very least, made a few people aware that fathers are seen as irrelevant to the children they were involved in creating. The UK is, apparently, almost as bad as the so-called republic of Ireland (remember Liberty, equality, fraternity?). Look at the statistics for divorced ans separated couples in Ireland and you will find that most children live primarily with their mother following separation or divorce (http://www.mcsolicitors.ie/mcsolicitors/main/Press_IT_01Feb11.htm) So much for equality!!! Equality in Ireland, even though a Constitutionally protected right, is a farce. At least the UK don’t pretend to have a Constitution!!!
Hush now, you don’t want to upset the wimens groups.
have your say