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Memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes painted over !

Mia Forsyth | 02.02.2015 12:35

At around 9.30 this morning workmen arrived at Stockwell tube station it seems to repaint the front of the station and perform other maintenance work. Either as a result of directly being ordered to or maybe through incompetence they painted over the mosaic memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes that was built in early 2010 (I think January or February).

I spoke to two of the men but their English was poor and we were unable to communicate clearly, they certainly had no idea who Jean Charles de Menezes was or the upset this was going to cause. They shrugged, laughed and carried on with their work. I went inside and spoke to TfL staff but they were indifferent and refused to intervene with the workmen.

I have emailed via their complaints website the TfL head office but have had no response as yet. One of my colleagues passed about 10 minutes ago and he reported there is now a temporary building structure in front of the area to the left of the main entrance covering the memorial and surrounding wall.

I would request others contact TfL and voice a complaint to ensure the memorial is returned to its original state, there is a webpage address below with details of how to do that.

Mia Forsyth
- Homepage: https://custserv.tfl.gov.uk/icss_csip/CreateRequestDisplayServiceForm.do

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

did this really happen?

03.02.2015 11:59

i spoke to the tfl press office, who made phone calls and checked their live cctv view of the station, and said there is no building work happening there. and the mural is fine.

unfortunately i'm not able to go there today and see for myself.

if this really has happened, could you supply a picture that shows the painted-over mural? and then the rest of us could use that to spread the news...

if nothing is supplied to corroborate the story, maybe it should be hidden. and we can ask each other "why would anyone make that up?" it seems super-uncompassionate towards the de menezes family/ friends.

true?

Has gone

04.02.2015 14:46

The memorial is still there but has been painted over. There are some brackets for fixing advertising to the wall.

Lonnie

I called Transport for London (TFL)

07.02.2015 10:13

TFL have responsibility for the upkeep of Stockwell station and are the legal owners of it and by default the memorial to Jean Charles. Their press office told me the memorial had started to degrade over the past few months as a result of poorly chosen stone that is unable to deal with the pollution of London. They have spoken to the family who were unwilling to pay for the maintenance and as a consequence the decision was made to paint over the memorial with a protective liquid membrane. Until such time as new funding is available this will remain.

As the family are unwilling or perhaps unable to fund the repairs I suggest a fund raising event or campaign to raise the money

Wage slave