A 21-year-old man who scrawled “Lee Rigby’s killers should hang”, on the RAF Bomber Command War Memorial in London has been jailed for 12 weeks.
Daniel Smith admitted causing two counts of criminal damage on June 5, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Smith, from Grecian Street North, Salford, Greater Manchester, said he did not realise it was a war memorial.
District Judge Quentin Purdy told him: “There are those who are deeply offended by what you chose to do.” He added some people would “wish you considerable ill, I am sure, simply because you chose to do it”.
Smith’s defence counsel, Colleen Gildernew, told an earlier hearing he was “disgusted with himself” over the act.
He had also daubed “EDL” and a swear word on the memorial in Green Park.
Damage to the memorial, created to remember the thousands of RAF crew who lost their lives in World War Two, amounted to £870. The memorial was vandalised twice in just over a week, following the death of Fusilier Rigby in Woolwich, south east London, on 22 May.
Following the sentencing Baljit Ubhey, CPS London Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: “This was an appalling act of vandalism which defaced the memorial to the thousands of men who lost their lives in the Second World War flying for RAF Bomber Command.
“I hope that this prosecution will serve as a warning that such behaviour will not be tolerated in our city.”
Smith also pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing £510 of criminal damage to the wall of a commercial property in Knightsbridge.
Smith has 44 previous convictions, related mainly to shoplifting, the court was told.