It was shortly after 2 a.m. on March 2, the police stated, when two members of the British Royal Air Power approached a statue of Paddington Bear, sitting placidly on a park bench in Newbury, England, and holding his favourite snack: a sandwich dripping with marmalade.
The boys then kicked, broke aside and stole Paddington, leaving a husk of the bear nonetheless affixed to the park bench. Nevertheless it seems that they’d picked the improper bear to mess with, within the improper place.
Newbury has a particular reverence for Paddington, because the birthplace of Michael Bond, the creator of the beloved kids’s e-book collection in regards to the genial Peruvian bear and his adopted household in London, the Browns.
So when the lads, Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, each 22, pleaded responsible to prison harm on Tuesday, the choose had some alternative phrases earlier than he sentenced them.
“Paddington Bear is a beloved cultural icon with kids and adults alike,” the choose, Sam Goozée of Studying Magistrates’ Courtroom, advised the lads, based on a duplicate of his remarks launched by the court docket. “He represents kindness, tolerance and promotes integration and acceptance in our society. His well-known label connected to his duffle coat says, ‘Please take care of this bear.’ On the evening of two March 2025, your actions had been the antithesis of all the things Paddington stands for.”
Decide Goozée sentenced the lads to 150 hours of neighborhood service and ordered them every to pay 2,725 British kilos, or about $3,530, to restore Paddington. “Your actions lacked respect and integrity, two values it is best to uphold as members of the armed forces,” he stated.
Each males expressed regret for the harm that they’d carried out to the bear.
“Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Heath deeply remorse their actions on the day and instantly accepted duty when spoken to by the police,” their lawyer, Tom Brymer, stated in an electronic mail. “Little doubt this was habits which was fully out of character.”
The statue of Paddington, classically attired in a pink bucket hat and blue coat, was considered one of one 23 that had been put in final yr throughout the UK and Eire to advertise the discharge of the film “Paddington in Peru.”
On March 2, security-camera footage confirmed two males — later recognized as Mr. Heath and Mr. Lawrence — approaching Paddington on a darkish road. Each males had been “drunk” on the time, the choose stated.
After some prying and pulling, the lads succeeded in eradicating Paddington’s facade. They then carried Paddington to a taxi, which took them and the damaged bear again to their Air Power base, Decide Goozée stated.
Officers from the Newbury Neighborhood Policing Group tracked Mr. Heath and Mr. Lawrence to their barracks later that day, arrested them and seized the broken statue, which had been stashed within the trunk of Mr. Lawrence’s automotive, the police stated.
Cracking the case was some extent of satisfaction for the native police.
“The Paddington Bear statue is a beloved a part of Newbury so we did all the things we might to find it and produce the offenders to justice,” Inspector Alan Hawkett of the Newbury Neighborhood Policing Group stated in a statement on Tuesday.
“After a brief keep at Newbury police station,” he added, “we handed the statue again to its homeowners so it may be restored.”
The Newbury Enterprise Enchancment District, which owns the Paddington statue, is planning to have the bear repaired and restored to his rightful perch on the park bench.
Within the meantime, a spokesman stated the district had lined the bench with a gazebo tent, partly to guard passers-by from the tough edges on the broken statue and “partly in order that kids wouldn’t see the bear within the damaged state.”
