Burrowes: One war memorial desecrated every week

Research by David Burrowes MP has found that a war memorial is desecrated by thieves and vandals every week. In the past year there have been at least 57 cases of war memorials being vandalised, urinated on or having memorial plaques stolen. Cases uncovered include:

• Thieves steal a plaque from a war memorial in Broomfield Park, Palmers Green, London
• Nazi swastikas sprayed on a memorial in Fleetwood, Lancashire
• A man in Blackpool who urinated on the town’s cenotaph, then assaulted a passer-by who tried to stop him.
• Wreaths laid to mark Holocaust Memorial Day being destroyed.
• An attack on a cenotaph in a garden in Weston super Mare designed by Alan Titchmarsh and built by TV’s Ground Force team.
• A stone cross in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Llanwit being smashed and bronze crosses stolen.
• The theft of stone planters from a memorial in Yorkshire on Armed Forces Day 2009.

Shadow Justice Minister David Burrowes said.
“From the Cenotaph in Whitehall to the simple plaques in the smallest village, war memorials are symbols of remembrance to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. It is therefore deeply shocking and disturbing when they are desecrated.

“We in this country owe a colossal debt to the war dead and so their memories should be treated with the proper respect. Criminals who desecrate war memorials must be properly punished not let off with a slap on the wrist.”