Vandals of Paddington Statue Were ‘Antithesis’ of Beloved Bear, Judge Says

It was shortly after 2 a.m. on March 2, the police said, when two members of the British Royal Air Force approached a statue of Paddington Bear, sitting placidly on a park bench in Newbury, England, and holding his favorite snack: a sandwich dripping with marmalade.

The men then kicked, broke apart and stole Paddington, leaving a husk of the bear still affixed to the park bench. But it turns out that they had picked the wrong bear to mess with, in the wrong place.

Newbury has a special reverence for Paddington, as the birthplace of Michael Bondthe author of the beloved children’s book series about the genial Peruvian bear and his adopted family in London, the Browns.

So when the men, Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, both 22, pleaded guilty to criminal damage on Tuesday, the judge had some choice words before he sentenced them.

“Paddington Bear is a beloved cultural icon with children and adults alike,” the judge, Sam Goozée of Reading Magistrates’ Court, told the men, according to a copy of his remarks released by the court. “He represents kindness, tolerance and promotes integration and acceptance in our society. His famous label attached to his duffle coat says, ‘Please look after this bear.’ On the night of 2 March 2025, your actions were the antithesis of everything Paddington stands for.”

Judge Goozée sentenced the men to 150 hours of community service and ordered them each to pay 2,725 British pounds, or about $3,530, to repair Paddington. “Your actions lacked respect and integrity, two values you should uphold as members of the armed forces,” he said.

Both men expressed remorse for the damage that they had done to the bear.

“Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Heath deeply regret their actions on the day and immediately accepted responsibility when spoken to by the police,” their lawyer, Tom Brymer, said in an email. “No doubt this was behavior which was completely out of character.”

The statue of Paddington, classically attired in a red bucket hat and blue coat, was one of one 23 that were installed last year across the United Kingdom and Ireland to promote the release of the movie “Paddington in Peru.”

On March 2, security-camera footage showed two men — later identified as Mr. Heath and Mr. Lawrence — approaching Paddington on a dark street. Both men were “under the influence of alcohol” at the time, the judge said.

After some prying and pulling, the men succeeded in removing Paddington’s facade. They then carried Paddington to a taxi, which took them and the broken bear back to their Air Force base, Judge Goozée said.

Officers from the Newbury Neighborhood Policing Team tracked Mr. Heath and Mr. Lawrence to their barracks later that day, arrested them and seized the damaged statue, which had been stashed in the trunk of Mr. Lawrence’s car, the police said.

Cracking the case was a point of pride for the local police.

“The Paddington Bear statue is a beloved part of Newbury so we did everything we could to locate it and bring the offenders to justice,” Inspector Alan Hawkett of the Newbury Neighborhood Policing Team said in a statement on Tuesday.

“After a short stay at Newbury police station,” he added, “we handed the statue back to its owners so it can be restored.”

The Newbury Business Improvement District, which owns the Paddington statue, is planning to have the bear repaired and restored to his rightful perch on the park bench.

In the meantime, a spokesman said the district had covered the bench with a gazebo tent, partly to protect passers-by from the rough edges on the damaged statue and “partly so that children wouldn’t see the bear in the broken state.”