WATCH: Man scales BBC and takes hammer to statue by known paedophile Eric Gill

A protester has scaled the front of the Grade II listed BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place and is currently attacking the ‘Prospero and Ariel’ statue created by the known paedophile, Eric Gill. Photos show the protester, wearing a Reservoir Dogs t-shirt, hammering away at the statue, removing large parts of stone from it while police say they continue to try and engage with him.
Campaigners have long asked for the statue to be removed after Gill’s diaries were released and it was revealed that he sexually abused his two eldest daughters, his sisters and his dog.

At one point this evening, the man said the statue should have been taken down in the past.
‘If this happened decades ago, I wouldn’t be here would I?’ he told the negotiators.
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called at around 4.15 pm to Broadcasting House in Portland Street, Westminster, where a man had used a ladder to reach the 10ft tall Eric Gill figures above the front entrance. Officers have cordoned off the entrance to the building.
A spokesperson for the Met said: ‘Officers attended and remain on scene attempting to engage with the man.
“Another man has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage. Enquiries are ongoing”. The other man was in the process of filming the criminal damage when he was approached by the police and taken into custody.
A biography on the Tate museum website about Eric Gill said: ‘His religious views and subject matter contrast with his sexual behaviour, including his erotic art, and (as mentioned in his own diaries) his extramarital affairs and sexual abuse of his daughters, sisters and dog.’
Nearly 2,500 people have previously signed a petition demanding the removal of the sculpture by Eric Gill on the website of political activist group 38 Degrees.
A spokeswoman for the BBC has declined to comment.
The incident came a week after a jury cleared four people of criminal damage after they pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

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