A woman who twice urinated on a war memorial has been jailed for seven months.
Kelly Martin was first charged with public indecency in April, when the memorial in Grays, Essex, still had remembrance poppy wreaths on it.
The 42-year-old repeated the act when she was on bail in June on the day before the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme.
Ms Martin, a mother-of-five, was convicted of two charges of outraging public decency and one of common assault.
“Each of these offences is so serious that only a custodial sentence is appropriate,” judge John Lodge said during her sentencing.
“The two cases of outraging public decency involve urinating on a war memorial. Inevitably war memorials were constructed at the centre of towns and villages so on a daily basis people could be reminded of the sacrifices made by people who died.”
When approached by a police officer, Ms Martin descended into a tirade of abusive language. “The officer described her has having a beer in her hand and struggling to pull her trousers up, the officer then said he was disgusted and shocked to his core that someone could be so offensive,” prosecutor Juliet Dobson told the court.
Ms Martin also threw an empty vodka bottle at a paramedic’s head.
When sentencing Ms Martin, Mr Lodge commented: “What makes your case particularly bad is having been caught doing it one time, when the nation was commemorating the worst battle of the First World War you were caught doing it again in the middle of the day.”
In mitigation, the court heard how Ms Martin was now “clean” after spending seven weeks in prison.
Since Ms Martin is only required to spend half of her term in custody and has been on remand since July, she will be released in the coming weeks.
Army veteran Kenneth Campbell, from Veterans Radio Net, commented: “I’m disappointed by the sentence that the judge gave but his hands were tied, he had no sentencing guidelines to work with.
“And that is why we will be petitioning to have it put on the statue books, it needs to be put in black and white and made a crime on its own.”
