Beheader of Thatcher statue to get jail term

Recent history has shown that an Englishman with a cricket bat is hopeless when faced by an implacable foe: if only Paul Kelleher had stopped when his bat "pinged off" an 8ft statue of Baroness Thatcher.

Instead he now faces a jail sentence after discarding his bat and seizing a metal stanchion to decapitate the Italian marble statue with a mighty blow aimed at its "big nose".

A jury yesterday took less than an hour to find Kelleher, 37, guilty of criminal damage at a retrial where he claimed the act was to protect his son and draw attention to dangers of the world.

Judge George Bathurst-Norman, at Southwark Crown Court, told him prison "obviously has to be an option". He was bailed until next month.

Kelleher went to London's Guildhall art gallery on 3 July last year and attacked the statue with a bat hidden underneath his raincoat.

Guy Ladenburg, prosecuting, said: "Mr Kelleher was an Englishman armed with a cricket bat and inevitably destined to fail. In his words, the bat just 'pinged off'." He then continued his attack by picking up a crowd control pole.