BBC sculpture defaced with hammer work of paedophile Eric Gill

Prospero and Ariel was sculpted by the controversial British artist, Eric Gill. Photo / Wikimedia Commons

British police on Wednesday cordoned off an area outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London after a man was spotted scaling the building and using a hammer to attack a statue by controversial sculptor Eric Gill.

Officers and ambulance workers rush to the scene after receiving reports that a man had used a ladder to reach the 10-foot-tall sculpture above the building's front entrance. The sculpture, depicting Ariel and Prospero from the Shakespeare play "The Tempest," was installed in the 1930s.

It was created by Gill, a prominent British artist who died in 1940. His diaries, which were published decades after his death, revealed that he sexually abused his daughters and the family dog.

The sculpture had previously drawn criticism and activist groups have demanded its removal.

Metropolitan Police responded to reports of a man attacking the sculpture on Broacasting House. Photo / Ian West, AP

The Metropolitan Police said officers attempted to "engage with the man," and that another man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

The incident came a week after a jury cleared four protesters of criminal damage after they pulled down a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city of Bristol in June 2020. The four protesters, who threw the statue into the harbor after toppling it, were acquitted on Jan. 5 following an 11-day trial.

London's Great Statue Debate

The UK capital has been gripped by a wave of revising its public monuments and statues. Many of these artworks in the busy Metropole have been passed by, forgotten for years.

However, a new breed of tours and tourists have begun exploring the city's icons with a critical eye.

Several tour companies have launched walking tours of the city's more 'controversial Statues and monuments' to ask what it is these sculptures commemorate.

The statue of King George III just off Trafalgar Square has once more been targeted. Two years ago he had three traffic...

Posted by Fun London Tours on Sunday, October 13, 2013

Boosted by more domestic tourism and pandemic travel trends, Brits have begun reappraising their backyard.

Fun London Tours says the world has been "gripped by the Great Statue Debate". Taking groups on tours of statues, it's their chance to interrogate the people they celebrate and their part in the city's role in colonialism, the slave trade and other less grand crimes.

The British Museum is a treasure trove of questionable art. The most notorious cause celebre The Elgin Marbles versus Parthenon Marbles debate has raged for decades, however there appears to be a change in public opinion as to whether the sculptures should be returned to Greece.

On Tuesday, a leader in conservative UK paper The Times claimed "the case for returning the Elgin Marbles to Athens has become compelling."

- Associated Press, with additional reporting