A 28-year-old man has been arrested in Essex after appearing to urinate next to the memorial dedicated to Pc Keith Palmer, the Metropolitan Police has said.
The man has been arrested on suspicion of outraging public decency after a photo showed the man apparently urinating next to the plaque.
Pc Palmer, was stabbed to death in the 2017 terror attack in Westminster.
Absolute shame on this man.
— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) June 13, 2020
Of all the images to emerge over these few testing days I find this one of most abhorrent.
Please help identify him. pic.twitter.com/8ydcNmTWrN
The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Ken Marsh condemned the “disorder and unruliness” witnessed at the far-right protests in London on Saturday, which saw violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “It’s horrendous. The man urinating next to Keith Palmer’s memorial is disgusting.
“How can a human being behave like that? I don’t get it, it’s beyond belief.
“A faction of people today [Saturday] only had one intention – to be violent and unlawful, they didn’t come here to protect the statues, it’s just disorder and unruliness.
“I suggest serious custodial sentences in relation to assaults on police and others, criminal damage and urinating next to the memorial of heroes.”
MP Tobias Ellwood, who gave first aid to Pc Palmer as he lay dying after being stabbed to death in the grounds Parliament by Khalid Masood, said the image of the man urinating next to the memorial outside the Palace of Westminster was “abhorrent”.
The Tory MP for Bournemouth East and chairman of the Defence Select Committee, tweeted a picture of the man and wrote: “Absolute shame on this man.
“Of all the images to emerge over these few testing days I find this one of most abhorrent. Please help identify him.”
Masood ploughed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing Pc Palmer, and was eventually shot dead by a plainclothes close protection officer.
The officer was posthumously awarded the George Medal for bravery that “unquestionably saved lives”.
His memorial was organised by the Police Memorial Trust and unveiled in February 2019.
More than 100 people were arrested at a far-right protest in London, which was condemned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “racist thuggery”.
Six police officers suffered minor injuries in violent clashes as several hundred demonstrators, mostly white men, attended the protest organised by far-right groups which claimed they wanted to protect statues such as Winston Churchill from vandalism.
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