Decapitator of Thatcher's statue is jailed for three months

A man's decision to protest against world politics by beheading a statue of Margaret Thatcher earned him a three-month jail sentence yesterday.

Paul Kelleher, 37, said he attacked the figure, valued at £150,000, to draw attention to the dangers of "this mad world". He told Southwark Crown Court he was "very sorry" and offered to do 150,000 hours community service. But Judge Bathurst Norman told Kelleher that, although many people sympathised with him, smashing up property deserved a custodial sentence. Repairs to the 8ft statue will cost £10,000.

Sentencing Kelleher, Judge Bathurst Norman said: "I have to make it clear to you and others like you ... that offences of this kind are so serious that inevitably a prison sentence must follow when the damage was as costly as in this case." The white marble statue, commissioned to stand in the Houses of Parliament, had been on loan to Guildhall art gallery in the City of London on 3 July last year when Kelleher struck. He turned up with a cricket bat and waited for an appropriate "window of opportunity" before using the bat.

The head remained in place so Kelleher grabbed a metal pole from a barrier and struck again, knocking off the head. Kelleher, from Isleworth, west London, then waited for police, telling them: "I think it looks better like that." He was convicted of one count of criminal damage last month.

Yesterday, Kelleher said: "I would like to say I'm very sorry that my frustrations have led me to this. I wish it was not the case, more than probably anybody else in this world."

He said he had nothing against the former prime minister as a person. But he said the decapitation had been "truly justified in law". At the end of his half-day trial, he described the guilty verdict as "ruthless".

The judge gave Kelleher credit for the way he confessed to the crime and waited for police. "I don't doubt the sincerity of your beliefs. Many people share them, particularly in relation to what is happening in Third World countries. And I would be the last person to deny any person the right to freedom of speech and the right to protest against matters which support his beliefs," he said. "But when it comes to protest there is a right and proper way to protest.

"The way people banded together last Saturday to demonstrate against the war in Iraq was the right and proper way to make their voices heard.

"But the way you acted to knock the head off a valuable statue of a politician who left power over 10 years ago and whose party is no longer the party of government was very much the wrong way."