Person identified after Margaret Thatcher statue vandalised

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

Police said they have identified a person after an appeal for information after a statue of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was vandalised.

However, at the time of writing this had not led to an arrest.

Lincolnshire Police said the sculpture in her birthplace of Grantham had "been defaced with a slur written in red paint".

The force issued a CCTV image of the incident which was believed to have happened at about midnight on Tuesday.

The £300,000 monument has previously been attacked, with eggs thrown at it.

The statue was unveiled in May 2022 after being offered to South Kesteven District Council when plans to erect it in Parliament Square in London were rejected.

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

The former Conservative prime minister was born in the town in 1925 and died in April 2013, aged 87.

She was the first woman to hold the post and served from 1979 until her resignation in 1990.