Paddington Bear and the new idolatry

Is nothing sacred? Not quite, as it turns out. There remains one last object of piety in these, the early days of the third Christian millennium (don’t laugh). Surprisingly, it is a fictional bear from darkest Peru. Yes, Paddington is back in the news. Because he hath been desecrated. There is, or was, a sedentary statue of St Paddington Bear on a bench in Northbrook Street, Newbury. He was depicted clutching a marmalade sandwich in both paws, wearing an expression that was probably intended to be thoughtful, but that to any reasonable person appeared feral and malevolent.

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One dark night a few weeks ago, Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, RAF engineers from the nearby base at Odiham, both 22, decided – after drink had been taken – to remove Paddington for a laugh. They somehow cut the baleful effigy out of its base, leaving behind an eerie, Pompeii-like shadow.

Hilariously, the next day, investigating police threw up a forensics tent around the crime scene. It was a pink tent, which makes you wonder if the filth have a range of colours for such sheeting, varying on the campness of the incident. The two RAF lads were up in court at Reading yesterday, pleaded guilty to criminal damage, and were sentenced to community service. They were also ordered to pay costs towards the repair of the violated simulacrum, of three grand each. Fair enough.

It is terrible to admit to it, but there is something perversely amusing about this kind of drunken prank, particularly when it involves something trivial – policemen’s hats, traffic cones, bloomers run up a flagpole, etc. Readers over 50 will recall the despoiling of the Blue Peter garden, and how the presenters went into head-shaking, sadly sighing, ‘you’ve let the school down, you’ve let yourself down’ mode. This made the incident a thousand times funnier.

The prosecutor in the case told the court, ‘When you think about England you think about two things; Paddington Bear, and the royal family.’ This was silly enough. But then…

Right, OK, judges are renowned for saying all manner of peculiar things. I worked in the courts many years ago, and my favourite experience of this was when a judge, summing up an extremely complex fraud trial, tried to simplify it to the jury by comparing the injured parties to the boys at Greyfriars School awaiting one of Billy Bunter’s much-delayed cheques.

But District Judge Sam Goozee, the magistrate at Reading Magistrates’ Court, really went for gold in his sentencing remarks. ‘In what can only be described as an act of wanton vandalism,’ he thundered, ‘the CCTV shows the two of you forcibly remove the front façade of the Paddington statue and carry him [him!!] through the town to a taxi, which took you and the statue back to your base at RAF Odiham. You were both under the influence of alcohol. Paddington Bear was then located in William Lawrence’s vehicle.’

The bear. Him. Described by name. As if this divine artefact were a real bear. A real talking bear. But Goozee was just warming up. He went on, ‘Paddington Bear is a beloved cultural icon with children and adults alike. He represents kindness, tolerance and promotes integration and acceptance in our society. His famous label attached to his duffle coat reads “please look after this bear”. On the night of 2 March 2025, your actions were the antithesis of everything Paddington stands for.’

It’s astonishing to read that last sentence delivered by a judge in an English court of law. Was it a test to see if the defendants could keep straight faces? Because even if I was looking at a custodial sentence I couldn’t have kept the lid on my giggle box.

More from Judge Goozee: ‘Your actions lacked respect and integrity, two values you should uphold as members of the armed forces.’ It is a bad thing to vandalise public property, yes. But lacking respect? Respect for what? A twee teddy? It is difficult to imagine what went through the minds of Heath and Lawrence, who I suspect were motivated by nothing more than the usual, age-old spurs of the drunken lark, but it’s this kind of drivel that makes one want to pick up an axe to icons of the marmalade-chomping little smart arse oneself. This elevation of Paddington to the untouchable, a fetishised equivalent to the monarchy, is ludicrous. It was not a war memorial or a grave, or a depiction of Our Lady that was defaced – it was a statue of an effing bear.

The third Commandment goes, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, particularly of that gimp of a cartoon bear’. The Old Testament had the sin of idolatry, and Islam the practice of aniconism; you begin to wonder if these desert chappies were on to something. Moses took the golden calf and ‘burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.’ Just as well he didn’t come up before District Judge Goozee – who would’ve fined him a hundred talents, given him a Paddington-style hard stare, and reminded him that this was the antithesis of everything the golden calf stood for.