Two men have papered over a billboard in east London due to concerns that it glamorises violence at a time of rising crime in the capital, earning praise from the local MP and attracting criticism from the actors portrayed on the hoarding.
The poster for Sky’s police comedy Bulletproof features two gun-toting actors, one of whom is pointing his weapon as though he were about to enter combat.
Richard Selby, an IT consultant, decided to act after he saw the billboard over a busy Walthamstow street when leaving a leisure centre with his eight-year-old son.
“It felt wrong to me,” he told the Guardian. “Especially in the light of the shootings and stabbings that we’ve endured all over London, but particularly in this area, so I thought I’d cover up the guns with something else.”
Selby enlisted the help of his friend Graham Clifford, a local headteacher, and plastered a cardboard carrot and hairdryer over the two handguns.
The poster provider, Primesight, subsequently covered it up with a blank canvas, prompting the two men to replaster the carrot and hairdryer.
When asked whether he had any plans to cover other billboards, Selby said: “I don’t want this to be the start of a vigilante career where I spend my life dedicated to plastering on billboards.
“I have a life to resume. I think I’ve made the point.”
However, he intends to write #GunFreeAds across the canvas at the weekend in an attempt to crystallise the debate that has arisen.
“The [London] mayor, Sadiq Khan, has been very vocal about putting a ban on advertising unhealthy food on tubes and buses and selling junk food near schools,” said Selby.
“I would say if we’re going down that line, shouldn’t we perhaps think about some guidelines for appropriate advertising when it comes to violence and weapons also near schools?
“I’m totally against the idea that carrying a handgun is normal for anyone in our society, and this contributes to a culture where guns are considered cool and acceptable.”
Stella Creasy, the Walthamstow MP, commended the act on Twitter.
It did, however, provoke an angry response from the actors Noel Clarke and Ashley Walters.
“They only vandalised our poster and made it a cute story because it’s us,” Clarke wrote on Instagram. “If they covered posters with white actors holding guns it would be a full-time job. And would it even make news?”
Creasy replied in an attempt to communicate local concerns.
She invited Clarke to Walthamstow “to meet the parents who are upset to understand why the location of the poster was so potent”.
Walters also weighed into the debate, explaining that due to traumatic personal experience, he has seen the effect violence can have on a community.
“The poster with me and [Clarke] holding guns is not glamorising violence. Our characters are armed policemen,” he wrote.
“Stella Creasy should spend more time asking the government why they waste money on war every day – actually destroying people’s lives around the world – meanwhile leaving Londoners lining up for food banks. If that’s not pushing people into violence, I don’t know what is.”
The rate of serious crime in London has soared in the past year, with gun crime up 23%, while the number of suspected murders has spiked in the capital.
Police chiefs this week discussed frontline officers routinely carrying guns due to concerns that Britain’s elevated terrorism threat is here to stay.
The billboard poster in Walthamstow with a carrot and a hairdryer in place of the firearms.
