Grantham statue of Margaret Thatcher vandalised again

The £300,000 bronze of the UK's first female prime minister arrived in Grantham in May 2022

An 18-year-old woman has been arrested after a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Grantham was vandalised.

The monument in the late prime minister's birthplace was daubed with the words "burn in hell" in an attack that was reported on Tuesday evening.

The woman was arrested for criminal damage and issued with a fixed-penalty notice, Lincolnshire Police said.

A university arts chief was fined £90 for egging the statue - which has been valued at £300,000 - last year.

The statue sits on a 10ft (3m) high plinth under CCTV surveillance to minimise the risk of vandalism.

It was also splattered with paint and a hammer and sickle was painted on the fence protecting it, in a separate incident shortly after it was erected in May 2022.

Bronze effigy

It was offered to Grantham, where Baroness Thatcher was born in 1925, after Westminster Council turned it down amid fears of "civil disobedience and vandalism".

The bronze effigy of the UK's first female prime minister, made by sculptor Douglas Jennings, was installed on St Peter's Hill Green, near the Grantham Museum, without ceremony after plans for a taxpayer-funded unveiling were abandoned by South Kesteven District Council.

Neil Kinnock, who led the Labour Party between 1983 and 1992 and who regularly faced Mrs Thatcher across the House of Commons chamber as leader of the opposition, has previously condemned the attacks on the statue.

"The statue should be respected, full stop," he said.