A memorial to Captain Sir Tom Moore has been defaced by a climate activist campaigning against the use of private jets in the UK.
Footage was posted online showing 21-year-old Maddie Budd pouring human waste on to the memorial of the late British army officer in Hatton, Derbyshire. The campaign group End UK Private Jets released the footage via its social media channels.
BREAKING: End UK Private Jets supporter pours human faceas on Captain Tom memorial. Maddie, 21, former medical student said:
— End UK Private Jets (@EndUKPrivateJet) September 30, 2022
“Every time a private jet takes off, it pours a bucket of shit and blood on everything Captain Tom stood for”#endukprivatejetshttps://t.co/zTzVJ2gu8H pic.twitter.com/4qjpKiyO9n
Budd, a former medical student from Wales, said: “People are going to say that he’s a hero, people are going to say that this is profoundly, obscenely disrespectful to his life, and to the NHS he stood up for and I agree.
“I was studying to become a doctor because I believe in taking care of people. If we believe that the NHS is important, if we believe in taking care of each other, if we believe that NHS workers are doing essential work, why are we forcing our healthcare system into collapse, why are we forcing our civilisation into collapse, why is basically no one taking this genocide of all humanity seriously?”
She added: “All of this is true and the government won’t end UK private jets, every time one takes off, it pours a bucket of shit and blood on to everything that Captain Tom stood for.”
Maddie, 21, explaining why she poured human shit on this @captaintommoore memorial.
— End UK Private Jets (@EndUKPrivateJet) September 30, 2022
Find out what to do about climate genocide by coming to a LIVE zoom talk this Sunday at 7:30pm or watch a 70 minute video.
Both are available at https://t.co/zTzVJ2fWj9#endukprivatejets pic.twitter.com/A8SgQ7rPmY
Austin Cox, who donated the memorial to Thistley Meadow, has said: “We will be pursuing Maddie for vandalism. We will work with the police to ensure this is taken as far as possible.”
End UK Private Jets is a small group that campaigns against carbon emissions by private aircraft. The group was reportedly also behind a protest at the Laver Cup tennis tournament in London last month, when a man appeared to accidentally set fire to his arm before Roger Federer’s final match.
According to End UK Private Jets, the 20-year-old involved in that incident was later released from custody with a £180 fine for aggravated trespass.
Moore was knighted by the Queen after he walked 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday to raise more than £32m for the NHS. He died in Bedford hospital in February 2021 after testing positive for Covid.
A spokesperson for End UK Private Jets said he was a symbol of doing a good thing in hard times. “Doing what Maddie did to Captain Tom’s memorial is disrespectful and what she did doesn’t even come close to the disrespect of letting climate collapse happen,” the spokesperson said.
