The Metropolitan police have decided not to compensate or even apologise to the European family whose van was broken into because it had “Iran is Great” emblazoned on its sides.

Earlier this month, counter-terrorism police were called to investigate a family van parked outside the Science Museum in central London. The police evacuated the museum and put cordons in place as they smashed the van’s windows, suspecting it contained a bomb. Instead, they found dolls and stationery scattered around inside.

The vehicle belongs to Cristian Ivan, a Romanian, his French wife, Audrey, and their German-born children including eight-year-old Lucas and his younger sister Emilea. When they returned from the nearby Natural History Museum they found that their van had been at the centre of a major security alert involving the bomb squad because of the message written on its sides.



A policewoman later told the family: “We had to block the road, we had to call out the bomb squad, we had to call up supervisors to come down, we had to close everywhere off because your vehicle was parked in a higher security hotspot in London with that written on the sides. That’s the justification. It doesn’t say ‘Spain is Great’, ‘Italy is Great’, whatever.”

The Ivans started living and traveling in their van five years ago and later inscribed “Iran is Great” on both sides of their vehicle after visiting the country and falling in love with its people. Visiting museums is an essential part of the home-schooling of their kids.



The insurance and claims department of the Metropolitan police recently wrote to Cristian Ivan to explain that it would not offer any compensation. “It would be unreasonable to expect this service to pay compensation when police were merely carrying out the duty the public rightly expect of them especially given the heightened counter-terrorism threat level,” read the letter seen by the Guardian. “Where police force entry lawfully as was the position here, and in doing so cause damage, there is no legal liability to compensate in respect of damage necessarily caused.”

The police insisted that it had conducted extensive inquiries trying to locate the registered keeper of the vehicle in order to eliminate their suspicions, but those efforts did not prove satisfactory. As a result, the vehicle was deemed as suspicious.

Cristian Ivan told the Guardian on Tuesday that he does not blame the Met for what it did, but for what it did not do afterwards. The police did not leave a note on the vehicle explaining what had happened, leaving the family in a state of confusion which initially led them to think the van had been robbed. They were subsequently scolded by the police for the message they had written on their van, he said.

Cristian Ivan was not convinced by the letter. Their website address, which contains electronic ways to contact them, was displayed on both sides of their van. An app on their website also tracks their live location. He said: “The Science Museum called the police but their security officers had seen us going to the Natural History Museum and had cameras recording us going there. They could have reached us there.

“The police did not leave the van secured. They left the doors of the van unlocked while the window was smashed and they left nobody around to watch it. They also failed to leave a note about our rights and explaining the procedure to apply for compensation.” He said he has not been able to explain the police’s behaviour to his children, who has been affected by the incident. Cristian’s insurance will not cover the damages made by the police.

A Metropolitan police spokesperson said: “We reiterate that all relevant procedures were followed in dealing with the security alert, caused by a reported suspicious vehicle parked within a restricted area on Monday 3 August.” The police said they have not received an official request for an apology.

The Ivans first visited Iran five years ago on their way to India. They had planned to stay five days but ended up staying two months. In 2013, they visited Iran for the second time but their van was robbed and all their money and documents were stolen. They were overwhelmed by the reaction of the people who offered help and stayed in the country for six months. That was the point when their Iran is Great project was born, Cristian Ivan told the Guardian in a separate interview earlier this month.