A 38-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage after Winston Churchill's statue outside the Houses of Parliament was defaced with graffiti labelling the former prime minister a 'Zionist war criminal'. Caspar San Giorgio, of no fixed address, was arrested by the Metropolitan Police shortly after 4am on Friday and charged in the early hours of Saturday. He is due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in London.
The bronze sculpture in Parliament Square was sprayed with red paint, including phrases such as 'stop the genocide', 'free Palestine', 'never again is now', and 'globalise the intifada'. The Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police had previously stated in December that anyone chanting 'globalise the intifada' would face arrest. San Giorgio has been charged with criminal damage.
The statue was cordoned off and cleaned on Friday morning. A Greater London Authority spokesperson said: 'We are appalled by this vandalism to the statue of Sir Winston Churchill and work is under way to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.' Downing Street described the vandalism as 'completely abhorrent', with a No 10 spokesperson adding: 'Churchill was a great Briton. This government will always stand up for our values and the perpetrator must be held to account.'
Churchill's statue has been vandalised multiple times previously, including in June 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests when it was sprayed with the word 'racist'. In October 2020, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay over £1,500 after painting 'racist' on the plinth during a climate protest. The 3.6-metre monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by Churchill's wife, Clementine, and is one of 12 statues in Parliament Square.
