Senior Citizen Caught on Camera Defacing Margaret Thatcher Statue, Prompting Police to Seek Information

The Margaret Thatcher statue, valued at £300,000 and located in her hometown, has once again been targeted by vandals, this time with a senior citizen caught on CCTV spray-painting a slur on the monument. The statue, often referred to as the Iron Lady, was marred with the term ‘b*d’, marking the latest incident in a series of acts of vandalism it has endured.

The incident, which police believe occurred in the early hours between March 5th and 6th, is under investigation by the Lincolnshire Police. They have shared a still from the CCTV footage showing an elderly individual in the act of writing the offensive word in bright red paint. The suspect appears to be wearing a long coat and a white patterned scarf and has short grey hair.

Efforts by cleaning teams successfully erased the graffiti by midday, yet authorities are urging the individual captured in the footage to step forward. Although a suspect was identified following a public appeal, no arrests had been made at the time this information was released.

The 10-foot statue, which was unveiled in May 2022, has faced backlash from certain community members, leading to previous incidents where it was pelted with eggs and paint. This recent act of vandalism coincides with the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike, a contentious period during Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, when 20 coal mines were closed, resulting in the loss of 20,000 jobs and leading to widespread strikes among the country’s miners.