Prime Minister and Local MP Jake Berry Condemn Poppy Burning
During Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons today, local Conservative MP Jake Berry said: "I'm sure all members of the House would agree that one of the most important jobs we have every year is to go and represent people who have lost their lives in war on Remembrance Sunday."
"It's certainly something I do with great pride in my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen."
"With that in mind, does the Prime Minister think a £50 fine is an appropriate punishment for those who burn poppies and chant during the silence?"
Mr Cameron replied: "I think you would have spoken for many people in terms of people's reaction to that court case. It is difficult unless you're sitting in the court and making that decision yourself."
"But I think to many of us, you look at something like that and feel that, as a country, we should be making a stronger statement that that sort of behaviour is completely out of order and has no place in a tolerant society."
Emdadur Choudary, a member of Muslims Against Crusades, burned two large plastic poppies during the two-minute silence in West London on 11 November.
Choudary, 26, was fined £50 on Monday at Woolwich Crown Court, with district judge Howard Riddle describing the poppy-burning as "a calculated and deliberate insult to the dead and those who mourn or remember them".
Jake Berry told us “A fifty pound fine is derisory and an insult to all our brave service men and women. I am delighted that the Prime Minister shares my view and with our own regiment (The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment) just having returned from Afghanistan late last year I am determined that they know that local people support them and their sacrifice.”
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