There have been two offences of vandalism that have been reported by the Romford Recorder, the local newspaper for the London Borough of Havering that strike me as being atypical both in terms of the nature of the crime in one case and in the other the type of offender.
The first case comes courtesy of the Religion of Peace website and relates to the theft of one of a series of statues in a park in Dagenham. These statues featured the singer Billy Bragg, a local star, the Ford’s seamstresses who fought for equal pay for men and women and a British serviceman, Warrant Officer Ian Fisher who was killed by an Islamic suicide bomber in Afghanistan. The second incident occurred in a church near Roneo Corner in Romford where both the description of the alleged vandal and the fact that the vandalism seemed highly targeted, seems to point to this being much more than the normal sort of vandalism carried out by teenagers who are bored or have been egged on by their peers.
As I said in the opening paragraph there are oddities about both these cases that may lift them from the normal sort of run of the mill vandalism offences.
In the first incident there was a sculpture bench erected in Beam Valley Country Park that had as part of its design the three figures mentioned above. Sadly this artwork has been vandalised and one of the figures stolen. What’s odd about this that only the statue of Warrant Officer Fisher was destroyed and stolen. If this was Pikeys/Travellers/Gypsies (or other appropriate description) after the scrap metal value of the statues, then surely they would have taken all of them not just the statue of Warrant Officer Fisher? Judging by images published by the Romford Recorder, none of these statues look as if they would be that difficult to cart away. You can see an image of the bench before it was vandalised below.
The bench with the statue of Warrant Officer Ian Fisher before it was vandalised and stolen (Picture from Romford Recorder)
Also, Beam Valley Country Park probably isn’t that well covered by CCTV so being observed would have been less of a worry for the thieves than it would be if they did this crime somewhere more busy. Surely if it was criminals after material gain then all the statues would have been taken not just the one of a British service person? Why target the only statue in the group that is of a British service person and leave the others?
Because only the statue of a British service person was targeted for theft, it raises the possibility that this wasn’t just an acquisitive crime and also not one motivated by mindless vandalism. There is the distinct chance that this crime was committed because of a political or religious motivation. Once we accept that there may be these motivations then we need to ask ourselves who would do this? The first candidate for such theft and destruction could be the violent political Left. They have a solid record for political vandalism and have attacked monuments to British service persons before. We’ve also seen recently how Leftist thugs in the United States and in the UK have toppled the statues of those whom the Left disapproves of and this attack could be linked to this phenomena. There is however other possibility and that this attack was carried out by one of the growing number of Muslims who have moved into the Havering area. The followers of Islam also have a solid record for attacking war memorials and screaming abuse at British soldiers returning from war zones. Also Muslims have been convicted of murdering a service person and have been suspected of attempted abductions of service people from outside military bases.
The fact that only the statue of Warrant Officer Fisher was taken is highly suspicious and will lead people to wonder whether this is yet another incident of Islamic intimidation aimed at the symbols of the nation that they hate and which they despise no matter how much our idiotic politicians pander to this community? Time, and the reaction of the authorities to this vandalism will no doubt tell. If this is standard vandalism or a normal Pikey theft then the chances are that the authorities will deal with this incident in the open. If on the other hand this is an offence linked to Islam, then we will have confirmation of this if the authorities do their level best to bury or minimise this incident or make excuses for the perpetrators.
The other incident in Havering is an attack on a church and in this case a purely religious motive can be discerned. In this case the description of the perpetrator seems remarkably different from the usual suspects in vandalism offences. According to date from the British Crime Survey of 2011 (see survey in links section) the vast majority of vandalism offenders were under 18’s whereas the man who entered the church in Hornchurch and smashed up Stations of the Cross statues was not. According to descriptions of the alleged offender taken from CCTV footages this attacker was a grown man In fact when I saw the description of the offender as being ‘large man with dark hair and a beard’ I wondered whether this attacker could be one of the intolerant and violent Muslims that the United Kingdom has foolishly imported.
Here’s part of the Romford Recorder article on the attack on St Mary’s Church in Hornchurch Road, Hornchurch that occurred on the morning of the 19th August 2017.
The Recorder said:
A search is underway for a man who it is believed made his way into an empty church on Saturday and caused hundreds of pounds of damage to religious statues.
On Saturday morning, an intruder made their way into St Mary’s Church on Hornchurch Road, Hornchurch and caused an estimated £500 of damage to religious artefacts.
Bizarrely, although the intruder was not interrupted, he only damaged three of the Stations of the Cross, before taking a fire extinguisher from the wall and spraying it over the altar steps.
One of the depictions of Christ’s Crucifixion appeared to have had the messiah’s arms snapped off.
He also broke a golden bell which has since been repaired, but left a large crucifix nearby totally untouched.
It’s obvious even from the description of the incident given by the reporter for the Romford Recorder that this was not an attack motivated by greed as there doesn’t appear to be anything stolen. The violence was primarily aimed at religious symbols in the church which suggests that there was a religious hatred motivation involved in this attack. The age profile of the alleged vandal also doesn’t fit that of the majority of vandals.
An image showing just some of the vandalism done to St Mary’s Catholic Church in Hornchurch
The Recorder added:
CCTV at the church shows a large man with dark hair and a beard approaching the church at 9.24am, wearing a dark hoodie and track suit bottoms.
Timestamps show the man spent less than six minutes inside the church, before coming out, rolling up his sleeves and moving off down Hornchurch Road towards Roneo Corner.
Church staff believe he was the only person to enter the premises on Saturday morning before the damage was discovered.
As the offender spend less than six minutes in the church this looks very much like he entered the building with the deliberate intent to destroy Christian religious images. There is no indication that the vandalism was a secondary crime committed by someone who entered thinking that there would be valuables there but who then caused this damage in frustration when no valuables were found.
This is another case where we need to ask who would be personally or ideologically motivated enough to engage in this sort of level of destruction in a Roman Catholic Church? There is of course the chance that this could be done by a mentally ill person with anti Clerical delusions and this possibility should not be discounted but apart from that who else would be motivated to engage in this level and type of destruction?
If we put aside for a moment the possibilities that the attacker was mentally ill and that this was a theft attempt that went wrong then we need to ask who could have done this? Could it have been an angry Anglican, mental Methodist or a pumped up Presbyterian? Unlikely. Outside of the Christian religious sectarianism that exists in specific areas of the UK such as Scotland and Ulster very few Christians will engage in this sort of violence against other Christians.
This crime is also unlikely to have been committed by members of the more peaceful minority religions in the UK. We can discount Sikhs, Hindus and Jews as suspects in this crime as most of us just want to keep our heads down and get on with getting on. As for the Jains, well they are far too busy trying exceedingly hard to not kill or harm any living creature to bother with attacking a church. So which religion is it that is consistently fomenting hatred and violence against Christians? Which religion has a long record for murdering and enslaving Christians and which religion created a terrorist group that has called on this religion’s followers to attack Christians and Christian property? The answer to these questions is of course Islam. The ISIS group for example has called for attacks on Christian churches in the United States and have been involved in deadly bombing attacks on Christians in places like Egypt. It should not be forgotten that despite the obvious evil that ISIS represent, that has not stopped a large number of British Muslims from either travelling out to the areas of Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS or who have given logistic support for ISIS here in the UK.
There is the distinct possibility that the church attack in Hornchurch was done by a Muslim who may have been radicalised both by their mosque and external forces into taking his hatred of other religions to the next level. The sort of damage that this church was subjected to shows that it was religious images that were specifically targeted. This is an action and a crime that Protestants have mostly given up on doing (although I admit that smashing up Catholic icons was much more common among Protestants in the past) and the idea that Hindus or Sikhs or others would do this in today’s world is beyond belief.
Both these attacks have aspects to them that raise suspicions that they were I some way related to Islam. These suspicions could of course be wrong but for two attacks, one against the statue of a British soldier murdered by Muslims and another against a Catholic church in such a small geographical area is unusual. It’s especially odd that these attacks should happen in an area that has seen an increase in the number of Muslims over the last decade. As we all know that when the number of Muslims in an area or a country the so also increases the amount of hatred and violence aimed at non Muslims and non Muslim religious buildings and religious symbols.
These attacks could in reality be ‘nothing to do with Islam’ but the choice of target, the modus operandi of the incidents and the description given of one of the attackers does mean that they have the distinct stench of Islam about them.
Links
Statue of soldier killed by Islamic suicide bomber vandalised and stolen from a Dagenham park
Religious vandalism of St Mary’s Catholic Church in Hornchurch
Nature of Vandalism data from British Crime Survey 2010 – 2011
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/nature-of-vandalism-statistics
Islamic attack on Christian church in Egypt
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-violence-idUSKBN17B06U
ISIS threaten US churches
http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-warns-isis-attacks-churches-536071
Half of British Muslims would not report terrorist Muslims to the police
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2308529/half-british-muslims-would-not-report-is-supporters/
