Six police officers swoop to arrest this 71-year-old... for lampooning politicians
SIX police officers arrested a pensioner for harassment and quizzed him for two hours over a series of satirical posters poking fun at local politicians. Former Monty Python cameraman John Wellard, 71, told the uniformed officers who marched into his home on Friday night: ‘I wasn’t expecting the Spanish Inquisition.’
Police were responding to complaints that light-hearted posters appearing in Faversham, Kent, amounted to harassment of members of the town council who were being lampooned.
For the last year residents have clashed with councillors over fears the town’s historic creek area will be turned over to developers for expensive flats.
In recent months the posters, one depicting a Tory councillor riding a donkey, began appearing in the town.
Last night Mr Wellard – who refuses to confirm or deny any involvement – said: ‘It was completely Pythonesque. Lampoonery and satire have been part of British public life for centuries.
‘Why have six policemen threatened to go through my belongings just because a few feathers have been ruffled?’ Mr Wellard, who was interviewed at the local police station, chose to reply ‘no comment’ to every question. He said: ‘I do not believe any offence has been committed.
‘I refused to make any comment, not as a measure of my guilt but I don’t believe I, or anyone else concerned, has done anything wrong. In politics people make criticisms and say all kinds of insulting things.
‘When the six police were about to search the house I joked that “I wasn’t expecting the Spanish Inqui- sition”, but it fell a bit flat. I don’t think anyone got the reference to a famous Monty Python sketch. At some point I must have been unarrested because they then told me I wasn’t under arrest.’
He believes his name had been given to Kent Police because one of the posters involved a joke from the Monty Python film Life of Brian. Mr Wellard is one of several hundred Faversham locals involved in a public debate about the future of historic buildings beside the creek.
There are plans to regenerate the area, but campaigners are concerned Faversham Town Council is favouring expensive developments over preserving its heritage. For the past five months images mocking some of the councillors had been handed around pubs and posted through doors – as well as brown envelopes stuffed with copies of old Venezuelan banknotes bearing the note: ‘If you find this message please return it to your councillor.’
One image poked fun at Swale Borough councillor Mike Cosgrove, picturing the local Tory politician riding a toy donkey, while another showed town mayor Nigel Kay, and other local public figures being described as ‘a growing problem in the heart of Kent’.
Mr Wellard said he was asked if he had anything to do with the posters, and if he had posted one of the brown envelopes through the door of Tory councillor Tom Gates.
He was taken home and told a file could be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. He said: ‘I have no comment about who produced the posters. But whoever did, they did not amount to harassment.’
Last night a Kent Police spokesman said: ‘A 71- year- old man attended a police station voluntarily and was interviewed under caution.’
Last night Faversham councillor Mr Gates, 73, said the councillors had agreed that the lampooning material was a criminal matter. He said: ‘I had one of these brown envelopes through my letterbox. It just got way out of hand. I’ve never been offered a bribe. I would certainly like people to be prosecuted.’