Welsh woman who poured faeces on Captain Tom’s memorial will not be jailed

The woman who poured a bucket of faeces on Captain Tom’s memorial will not be facing jail.

Madeline Budd, 21, a former medical student has avoided jail after pleading guilty to causing criminal damages. She was protesting on behalf of End UK Private Jets when she committed the act in Derbyshire.

She was given an 18 month suspended sentence of 21 weeks in custody and she was also ordered to pay £200 compensation. She had also previously spent three weeks in a Derbyshire jail whilst she awaited trial.

Prosecutor David Burns said that “serious distress has been caused” by Ms Budd’s student and that “Captain Tom was a figure well-known to the public. His work and charity had a great impact during the Covid crisis.”

Ms Budd’s lawyer, Katie McFadden told the court that her client “has expressed she will not undertake actions such as this in the future” and “She has clearly reflected on the impact of her actions and expressed how she is sorry for any offence caused to the family of Captain Tom.”

Ms McFadden continued by saying that Madeline had been living in a motorhome with a chemical toilet at the time of the incident so was easily able to access the substances needed for her stunt. She also said that Ms Budd later cleaned down Captain Tom’s memorial with toilet paper and water.

She then added: “The thought process behind this was to cause moral disruption, to draw people’s attention to the things that are going on in the world around her, to try and make people feel something, to try and get a visceral reaction so people will stand up and start to take notice of the climate crisis.”

At the time of the incident, Madeline was already in breach of a conditional discharge following an incident at the Oval Cricket Ground. Furthermore, she was also being investigated by two separate police forces and was due to appear before magistrates by postal requisition.

The presiding judge told Ms Budd: “You had clearly thought about what would cause the most amount of outrage and publicity… Although the substance you used was deliberately chosen as being the most demeaning and disgraceful as possible, equally it was a substance which can be easily cleaned.” She concluded by saying that she was only just persuaded to suspend Madeline’s sentence.

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