A statue of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been vandalised for the second time since it was erected in her hometown two weeks ago, with red paint spilled over it and a communist symbol spray-painted on fences surrounding the monument.
The act of vandalism took place in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on the evening of May 28. The back of the statue was covered in red paint and a hammer and sickle symbol representing the communist ideology was spray-painted on fencing around the site.
Lincolnshire Police has confirmed that the incident was being treated as criminal damage.
A spokesman for the force said on May 29: “Just before 11.15 p.m. yesterday, we received reports of a person shown on CCTV acting suspiciously near the site.
“Officers attended and found graffiti had been spray-painted onto the barriers surrounding the statue, no damage was thought to have been caused to the statue itself.
“This is being treated as criminal damage and an enquiry is ongoing.”
The Thatcher memorial was installed in Grantham on May 15. Less than two hours afterward, a protester threw eggs at the statue from behind a temporary fence surrounding the memorial.
Jeremy Webster, who is deputy director at the University of Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre, was given a £90 ($114) fixed penalty notice over the incident, Lincolnshire Police said on May 26.
The university said it “does not condone defacement” after the incident and said the matter was being addressed in line with its procedures.
The £300,000 ($380,000) statue is situated in between two existing statues of Sir Isaac Newton and Frederick Tollemache in the town’s Civic Quarter.
In February 2019, South Kesteven District Council’s planning committee unanimously voted in favour of the Thatcher statue, which was originally intended for Parliament Square in Westminster, London.
A document submitted to the council before the vote said that there is a possibility that the statue would be “a likely target for politically motivated vandals.”
The document recommended that the statue should be placed on a “sufficiently high plinth” that is difficult to climb in order to avoid desecration or damage and be subject to “adequate” CCTV surveillance and lighting.
After a large-scale £100,000 ($122,000) unveiling ceremony was approved by the council in 2020, a Facebook group proposing an “egg-throwing contest” at the event attracted interest from more than 13,000 people.
Around 2,400 others visited the Facebook page to say they would go to the event including “egg-throwing … and potentially graffiti art.”
Before planning permission was given to the statue, the only marking of Thatcher in the town was a plaque on the corner of North Parade and Broad Street to show where she was born.
