A 1933 statue on the facade of the central-London headquarters of the BBC, created by a prominent British artist who was claimed to have sexually abused children and a dog, was vandalised with a hammer by a protester on Wednesday. The incident comes just days after a group in another British city were cleared of criminal damage for toppling a statue of a controversial historical figure and throwing it into a harbour.
A man leant an aluminium extending ladder against the front of the London headquarters of state broadcaster the BBC Wednesday evening, allowing him to climb to the decorate stringpiece level with the bottom of statue Prospero and Ariel, which he chipped pieces from with a lump hammer while police watched from below. Also scrawled on the statues were the messages “time to go was 1989”, and “noose all peados [sic]”.
The statue is one of several works on and in the BBC’s Broadcasting House by Eric Gill, who died in 1940. Gill, a favourite of British elite tastes in his own time and whose stylistic influence helped mould the aesthetic of 20th century Britain, was revealed in a biography after his death to have been a sexual abuser who raped his own teenage daughters, sister, and family dog.