Son of Pink Floyd legend arrested over ‘insult to war dead’

LONDON - Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s son has been arrested after he was photographed swinging from the Union Flag on the Cenotaph, London’s most revered war memorial, during Thursday’s student violent student protests.

Charlie Gilmour was arrested in Sussex, where he lives, reports the Daily Mail.

As British police do not usually name suspects until they are charged, they said a 21-year-old man was arrested today on suspicion of violent disorder, theft and “attempted criminal damage of the Union flag on the Cenotaph.”

Cambridge University student and former model Gilmour issued a public apology on Friday after coming under a barrage of criticism for insulting the country’s war dead.

“My intention was not to attack or defile the Cenotaph,” Gilmour said.

“Running along with a crowd of people who had just been violently repelled by the police, I got caught up in the spirit of the moment. I did not realise that it was the Cenotaph and if I had, I certainly would not have done what I did.

“I feel additionally mortified that my moment of idiocy has distracted so much from the message yesterday’s protest was trying to send out,” he said.

Gilmour’s mother, the writer and journalist Polly Samson, also told of her shame. She insisted that he genuinely did not realise the flag was attached to the Cenotaph.

“He was running along with a crowd and in a mad, mad moment he grabbed the flag and swung on it,” she told the Evening Standard.

A spokesman from the Royal British Legion said: “War memorials honour the memory of the British Armed forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice and those who defend the freedom we enjoy.”

Meanwhile, police have released images of 13 men and one woman they want to identify over the violent disturbances during the riot.

Some demonstrators attacked a car carrying Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, and his wife Camilla. Some 35 people have now been arrested. (ANI)