BBC unveils restored controversial Eric Gill statue

A controversial statue carved by the sculptor Eric Gill has been restored and has been unveiled exterior the BBC’s London headquarters.

The Grade II*-listed statue was broken in 2022 and 2023, when it was attacked by a member of the general public with a hammer.

Gill was among the many most outstanding sculptors of the twentieth Century. However after his demise in 1940, his diaries revealed he had sexually abused his daughters.

A BBC spokeswoman mentioned on Wednesday the company “by no means condones Gill’s abusive behaviour” however that it “attracts a line between the actions of Gill, and the standing of those artworks”.

There have been calls lately for Gill’s Thirties work – which depicts Prospero and Ariel from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest – to be faraway from the BBC’s Broadcasting Home.

The restored sculpture can be displayed alongside a QR code which hyperlinks to details about the historical past of the constructing, Eric Gill and the sculpture’s restoration.

Final month, David Chick of Northamptonshire pleaded not responsible to inflicting greater than £150,000 value of harm in Portland Place in Could 2023.

The BBC mentioned the estimated whole prices of the restoration and protecting work was £529,715. It is understood the price has been coated by the BBC quite than claimed on insurance coverage.

A BBC spokeswoman mentioned: “When the constructing was topic to critical legal harm, on two events, there have been no simple choices for addressing the destruction triggered.

“Having sought skilled recommendation and opinion, we repaired the façade consistent with the constructing’s Grade II* standing.”

She famous that working with Historic England and Westminster Metropolis Council, they’d additionally put in a protecting display screen in entrance of the sculpture “to keep away from future harm”.

Historic England CEO Duncan Wilson mentioned: “We recognise that since particulars of Gill’s abusive behaviours got here to mild within the late Eighties, he has understandably grow to be a controversial character.

“We welcome the BBC’s strategy to repairing the sculpture and offering interpretation which explores this advanced historical past.

“That is consistent with our strategy of encouraging considerate, long-lasting and highly effective (re)interpretation of contested statues and websites which retains their bodily context however provides new layers of that means and understanding.”

In 2023, David Chick of Northamptonshire was arrested after allegedly climbing scaffolding at Broadcasting Home and hitting the statue with a hammer.

BBC employees reported listening to a person shout “paedophile” as he struck the statue.

Mr Chick was already below investigation for legal harm to the identical statue throughout a earlier incident in 2022.

In March 2025, the choose launched him on conditional bail and ordered the defendant to not go inside 100m (328ft) of the statue.

A trial date was set for Could subsequent 12 months, additionally at Southwark Crown Court docket.

The Prospero and Ariel statue has been on show on the BBC since 1933.