Canadian activist “Billboard Chris” has been highly critical of the Metropolitan Police after he had an ice cream dumped on his head at a pro-Palestine rally in London on Saturday.
The campaigner - real name Chris Elston - was at the rally wearing his billboard reading, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers” and “Gender ideology does not belong in schools”, when an unknown assailant slammed a tub of ice cream on his head.
Thankfully unharmed, Elston immediately asked nearby police officers to arrest the man, whose attack was caught on video.
He says the police declined to take action until Elston gave them his personal details. According to Elston, officers did not respond to his requests that they try to arrest the man before he could slip away.
After around 10 minutes and after speaking to several different officers, some of whom said they were not permitted to leave their posts at the protests, Elston finally gave an officer his personal details. Even after this, he says the police did not look for the alleged perpetrator, despite some of them being shown footage of the assault.
Elston then decided to look for the man himself and although he could not find him, he did manage to find a friend of the man.
Towards the end of the video Elston could be seen surrounded by an angry mob of pro-Palestine activists who were shouting at him over his failure to condemn Israel.
At this point the police did intervene and escorted him out of the protest zone for his own safety, something Elston said he appreciated and understood.
In a statement on X, Elston called the Metropolitan Police “castrated”.
“I was assaulted in London today with a tub of ice cream smacked on top of my head. Police officer after police officer refused to do anything. He should have been arrested in seconds. All [they] wanted to do was take down my personal details. I’ve dealt with police more than 300 times and I knew within seconds they weren’t going to do a thing about it.
“They said a few times they would go find him with me after I gave my details and showed them the video evidence, but of course that was a lie, so I went to go find him myself. I was then surrounded by an angry mob demanding I condemn Israel.
"Naturally, police removed me. That whole scene would have been avoided if they did their job and arrested the ice cream perp. Just another day telling the truth in a world gone mad.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said, "We are investigating this incident. No arrests have been made and enquiries are ongoing."
In a follow-up post on X, Elston hit out at Christian leaders who fail to speak out on the issue. He claimed that a lot of "Christian leaders would fire Jesus Christ if he was working for them".
"They would say 'Jesus, we like you, but you can’t go around flipping tables in the temple! You’re too extreme. You can’t be upsetting the Sanhedrin, Jesus. They are the keepers of the law, and they also donate to us. Tone it down!'” he said.
Elston has travelled around the world with his billboard. His latest stop was Glasgow, Scotland.
