Defacing the Cenotaph, urinating on Churchill... how young thugs at student protest broke every taboo

In a grotesque insult to those who championed the very freedoms which allowed them to stage their protest, a baying rabble of masked and hooded troublemakers turned a student demonstration into anarchy yesterday.



They defiled a statue of Winston Churchill by urinating on it, ripped flags from the Cenotaph ­– the nation’s sacred memorial to those who died in the name of liberty – then lit fires and sprayed slogans on the ground in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament.



The physical victims of their violence, inevitably, were the police.

War dead: A protester disrespects the Cenotaph as she swings from a Union flag

But the casualties of a day when so few were allowed to hijack a legitimate protest were respect and common decency.



From the bottles of urine they hurled aloft, to the scaffolding poles and increasingly dangerous missiles they threw, democracy was held in contempt.



Windows were smashed at the Supreme Court building. Even the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square – a symbol of peace and goodwill – became a focus for senseless vandalism.

Arson: Flames are visible at the base of the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, set alight in the protests

Once again, it was the actions of a minority which overpowered all attempts to keep this protest peaceful.



Every symbol of government or establishment became a target. Anything to hand became a missile.



I saw wood, metal, paint-bombs and smoke canisters hurled at male and female officers.



Police horses were beaten with sticks and at least one iron bar when a section of fencing was used to repel a line of mounted officers.



One of them suffered a serious neck injury after being trampled when he fell from the saddle. At least two other officers were badly hurt.



Day of desecration: Fires rage in Parliament Square

After four weeks of protests, four major riots and too many confrontations to count, the clock had been ticking relentlessly towards the vote the students had been so determined to change.



Inevitably, the Government did precisely what it said it was going to do about changing the way higher education is funded in this country.



But for hundreds of hard-core demonstrators, all done up in their hoods and scarves, it was also the last chance to spread their poison before the students went off on their Christmas holidays.

The irony of attacking and defacing monuments to the freedom which allowed this demonstration to take place clearly escaped the mob. In a sinister echo of the anti-capitalist riots ten years ago, protesters donned black balaclavas to carry out their assault.



Just as then, Churchill’s statue on Parliament Green, decorated in 2000 with a Mohican haircut made from vandalised turf, became a focus. And the plinth became a toilet.



Someone climbed up the base and gave a clenched-fist salute to a cheering crowd. Someone else went to spray graffiti on the inscription.



Shameful: A protester urinates on the statue of Winston Churchill

Nearby, two masked men tried to smash a window in the Treasury building in an apparent attempt to storm it. A protester scrawled ‘F*** fees’ on a wall.



But it was the desecration of the Cenotaph which broke all taboos. Four weeks ago I stood here to watch thousands pay their respects to those who died in two world wars, and to remember in prayer those who gave their lives in conflicts that followed.



All that meant nothing to the dark-haired figure who climbed the base of the monument – using the inscription on a bronze plaque as a foothold. Someone else stole a flag from the monument.



If anyone had planned this as a strategy to cause outrage, it could hardly have been more disrespectful. More likely, it simply symbolised the mindlessness of home-grown extremists intent on rising against the establishment.



Quite what the political significance might be of setting fire to the Trafalgar Square tree must remain a mystery.



In a further festive touch, protesters stole Christmas baubles from decorations in shops and businesses along the route, filled them with paint and launched them at police. Two officers who caught a broadside emerged in riot gear coloured in pale pastel shades.



Carnage: Demonstrators jump off burning park benches outside the Houses of Parliament

It had started predictably enough – a march, a rally, containment and anger. In fairness, many of the demonstrators had a right to be angry.

These were the ones whose futures may be in the balance now they have to fund their own further education, the ones whose protest was nothing but democratic and genuine.



Then the climate changed. Parliament Square was cordoned off at all exits as police struggled to contain the unrest.



Students used metal fencing to charge at officers and threw sticks as they tried to break through to Parliament. In response, police were seen using batons to hold them back, while mounted officers advanced into the crowds.



Inside the square, fires were created from piles of placards, burning to the accompaniment of loud rap music played to the crowd.



Fireworks shot into the sky to the sound of loud cheers. ‘Tory Scum’ seemed to be the favourite slogan. A lone protester wore a hostage-style hood embellished with the slogan: ‘Off with their heads’.



One of the most startling features of this protest, once again, was the age of the demonstrators. Schoolchildren as young as 14 joined students from all over the country, trade union activists and political groups.



Some of the children admitted they had bunked off school to be here.



It was a lesson in anarchy they could probably have done without.

Bloodied bobbies who faced the hate mob

By Charlotte Gill, Ryan Kiseil and Eleanor Harding



They faced a merciless hail of rocks, bottles, flares, paint bombs, snooker balls, fireworks, bricks and steel barriers.



By last night six police officers were seriously ill in hospital after rampaging mobs hell-bent on violence hijacked yesterday’s tuition fees protest.



One was knocked unconscious and suffered a serious neck injury.



Violence: Police officers battle to keep back the tide of protesters who jabbed metal fences at them

A mounted officer who came off his horse after being attacked by protesters sustained leg injuries when he was trampled by the animal.



There was no disguising the anger of Metropolitan Police spokesman Superintendent Julia Pendry as she described the punishment her colleagues had taken.



‘It is absolutely obvious that people have come to London with the intention of committing violent disorder, not coming for peaceful protest,’ she said outside Scotland Yard.



Of her fellow-officers, she said: ‘They came to work this morning to facilitate peaceful protest and end up being attacked by missiles, flares and other objects.’



In all, at least nine officers were hurt, with three suffering minor injuries which did not require hospital treatment, while 22 protesters were hurt.



At one point, demonstrators turned on each other, with a teenager pummelled on the ground with sticks.



Police were ordered to take off their high-visibility jackets because they are more flammable than their uniforms and were catching light from lobbed flares.



Splattered: An officer hit by a paintbomb thrown by protesters

At least 15 arrests were made – two for assaulting police officers, eight for violent disorder, two for arson, one for criminal damage and one for being drunk and disorderly and one for theft.



In Oxford Circus one of the busiest shopping nights of the year was overtaken by violence as looters smashed their way into Topshop, Niketown, Zara and Benetton.



The National Union of Students cancelled a planned candlelit vigil outside the Commons as the anarchists continued to wreak havoc.



Masked protesters determinedly pulled apart roadwork barriers and metal fences protecting the grass area of Parliament Square and hurled them at police while others ripped off struts and used them as missiles or truncheons.



Yesterday’s violence was the culmination of four weeks of protest which had seen countless scuffles between police and protesters and numerous arrests.



More than 30,000 students and lecturers marched on Westminster as MPs debated plans to triple university fees but it was, as seen at previous demonstrations, a minority of protesters who caused the violence.



Rescue service: Police carry an injured protester to safety

They were met by hundreds of police dressed in protective equipment and arranged in lines up to four deep behind reinforced metal fencing.



One group of protesters wore distinctive green hard hats and used foam placards shaped like books to jostle with police and protect themselves.



As scuffles continued to break out, police began using the controversial tactic of ‘kettling’ protesters in Parliament Square.



They set up a cordon along one side of the square to ensure protesters could not leave the planned course of the march.



The Metropolitan Police urged protesters to return to the agreed route and make their way to Victoria Embankment.



Spokesman Mrs Pendry said police did ‘everything in our power’ to allow a peaceful protest and organisers failed to keep a deal to follow an agreed march route.



Restrained: An injured protester is led away by police

Despite her statement that students could leave Parliament Square if they wanted to, students said they were still being prevented from going.



‘We have been to every exit and all the police are telling us we cannot leave,’ said one student trying to get away from the area.



‘There are gangs of youths randomly attacking people with sticks but the police are doing nothing about it.’



James Robinson, 20, from Manchester University, said: ‘We’ve been here since 1pm and the police won’t let us out. People were throwing anything they could at police and police were using their batons to fight back.’



Following attacks on the Treasury and the Supreme Court, Colin Barrow, the leader of Westminster City Council, condemned the damage as ‘shaming to the capital and our country’.

What sort of sick mind would do this to a horse

By Emily Andrews

Not even police horses were spared the fury of the rabble.



In Parliament Square, protesters deliberately tried to injure the animals and knock their riders to the ground.



They ripped up barriers to hurl at the horses and dismantled fences so they could throw the metal bolts.



Some even used the sticks from their placards to rain blows down upon the animals.



Havoc: A riderless horse at the centre of the battle scene

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said missiles including flares, sticks, snooker balls and paint balls had been hurled at officers, including those on horseback.



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Other tactics included setting off fireworks and throwing flares to spook the horses – which led to one officer being thrown off when his mount bolted.



None of the horses, all wearing protective plastic eye shields, leg armour and nose guards, was seriously hurt.



The majority, which go through rigorous training with their individual riders, stood firm despite the violence and noise.



Pandemonium: Officers take the terrified animal's reins



