Remember This?!
SHADOW HOME SECRETARY Ann Widdecombe was the victim of a custard pie attack when she visited Oxford on Thursday. Mel Jarman, a member of the 'Biotic Baking Brigade' and known to her fellow pie-throwers as Agent Orange, threw the pie that landed squarely on Miss Widdecombe's face as she was entering the Waterstone's bookshop.
A security guard who witnessed the attack said "Someone threw a pie - it hit her full in the face." He added, "they threw it aggressively." Jarman was later charged with assault and affray, and remanded on bail to appear at Oxford Magistrates' court on May 4. Agent Custard Pie, who was backing up Agent Orange with a second pie, was also charged.
The politician-cum-novelist was at Waterstone's on Cornmarket Street to promote her new novel, 'The Clematis Tree'. Post-pie, she issued a statement: "I deplore entirely the behaviour of these protestors. This demonstration was a mindless waste of police time carried out by people who clearly have no respect for free speech."
Later, in an interview with The Oxford Student, Miss Widdecombe was reluctant to talk about the attack. But when asked if she had experienced trouble of this nature before, she replied, "Not often, but I have been through it before."
The Biotic Baking Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, which was intended to be a protest against the Conservative Party's strict stance on asylum seekers. The Shadow Home Secretary has recently attracted controversy over the new Tory policy to detain all asylum seekers whilst their claims are being processed. One of the detention centres is Campsfield House, near Oxford. The site of the National Refugee Detention Centre has attracted local protestors including the 'Close Campsfield Campaign.'
24th Apr 2003