A climate protester has sparked fury after pouring faeces and urine over a memorial to Sir Captain Tom Moore.
Footage has been posted online showing 21-year-old Maddie Budd vandalising a statute of the late British Army officer in Hatton, Derbyshire.
The campaign group End UK Private Jets released the footage via its social media channels.
Ms 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 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?
“All of this is true and the Government won’t even End UK Private Jets, every time one takes off, it pours a bucket of sh*t and blood onto everything that Captain Tom stood for.”
Social media users criticised Ms Budd, with several labelling her “disgusting” and “sick”.
One person wrote: “By doing this all she has achieved is ensuring that the thousands of people who have seen what she’s done will never support her cause.
“My guess is that this isn’t actually a cause she cares about and in fact she’s just starving for attention.”
End UK Private Jets is a small group that campaigns against carbon emissions by high-end aircraft.
It only has a few followers online and appears to have been recently set up.
A spokesperson for the group said: “Captain Tom is a symbol of doing a good thing in hard times. He did so much good. And every time a private jet takes off, everything he stood for, all the good he did, is getting shit all over.
“The NHS will collapse if there’s no food, water or if the beds are filled up with millions of bodies. Words don’t come close to describe what this looks like.’
“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.
“If we really care about Captain Tom and what he stood for, why are we sending our NHS, law and order, safety and freedom into permanent collapse.
“Unimaginable collapse is coming and the Government won’t even End UK Private Jets.”
Captain Sir Tom Moore rose to fame after he set up a campaign to complete 100 walks in a bid to raise funds for the NHS during the Covid-19 crisis.
Sir Tom, who raised more than £32m for charity, was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle in July 2020.
