Laurence Fox holds a book about GULAGS as he is released on bail following arrest for ‘conspiring to damage ULEZ cameras’ – as actor says he only learned he was sacked from GB News while in a police station
- Actor took a swipe at GB News following his release from Croydon station
Laurence Fox has been pictured tonight leaving Croydon police station clasping a book about Soviet forced labour camps after his arrest for ‘conspiring to damage ULEZ cameras’ – and says officers told him while in custody he had been sacked by GB News.
Earlier today the 45-year-old political activist shared a video on X showing five police officers ‘storming his home’ as he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to damage ULEZ cameras a day after he threatened to tear them down with an angle-grinder.
Footage posted to social media showed the actor smoking a cigar in his living room as police officers appeared to search his home in south London before telling the camera: ‘That, ladies and gentlemen, is the country that we live in’.
Tonight, Fox posed for the cameras outside Croydon’s custody suite after he was released.
He was spotted scrunching a Tesco bag while also holding onto a copy of The Gulag Archipelago by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Laurence Fox was pictured leaving Croydon police station this evening clasping a copy of The Gulag Archipelago and a Tesco carrier bag
The former actor smokes a cigar as he released on bail after being quizzed by police officers. He told Sky News he only found out about his GB News sacking while in custody
Fox stands on the pavement holding up two fingers in a peace sign and then gets into a blue vehicle with a cigar dangling from his mouth.
READ MORE: Laurence Fox is arrested for ‘conspiring to damage ULEZ cameras’ after threatening to use an angle-grinder on them in a podcast
He then leans out of the passenger window showing off the front cover of the book.
Talking to Sky News, he took the opportunity to hit out at his former employer GB News once again calling them ‘GB joke’ and said he found out about his sacking when police officers told him in custody.
‘They [police officers] went; “By the way, you’ve been sacked and there’s loads of paparazzi out there”. And I was like “phew”,’ he said.
Asked about his arrest, Fox said: ‘They’ve let me go. It’s Sadiq Khan’s “make a big thing out of Loz”.
‘If Sadiq Khan thinks he can scare me, I’ve been intimidated by his coppers before.’
A spokesperson for the Met Police said: ‘On Wednesday, 4 October, officers arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to ULEZ cameras and encouraging or assisting offences to be committed.
The actor holds up two fingers in a peace sign and took the opportunity to take another swipe at his former employer’s GB News calling them ‘GB joke’
Fox said: ‘They’ve let me go. It’s Sadiq Khan’s “make a big thing out of Loz”. ‘If Sadiq Khan thinks he can scare me, I’ve been intimidated by his coppers before’
Fox holds up a copy of The Gulag Archipelago for the cameras before being driven away in a blue car
The Met Police said a 45-year-old man had been bailed to return on a date in mid-December pending further enquiries
‘He was arrested in Stockwell and taken to a south London police station. He has since been bailed to return on a date in mid-December pending further enquiries.’
The Reclaim Party posted a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying Fox would ‘be in touch tomorrow’. It read: ‘Laurence has been released from custody and wants family and friends to know he is safe and well and on the way home.’
Fox had made comments on Maajid Nawaz’s Warrior Creed podcast a day earlier where he said he would encourage a group of anti-ULEZ activists who call themselves ‘Blade Runners’ to tear down ‘every single camera’ in a bid to ‘encourage mass removal of the surveillance state’
He added he was ‘pretty close with several’ Blade Runners – a secretive group behind acts of Ulez camera vandalism – and that he would be ‘out there with my angle grinder’.
Scotland Yard said a 45-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to ULEZ cameras.
GB News later dramatically announced it had sacked Fox after he sparked a backlash by making derogatory remarks live on its channel about feminist journalist Ava Evans.
On Wednesday, a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed Fox sitting in his living room smoking a cigar while police appeared to search his home.
In the footage, he says: ‘Look how many coppers there are in my house…Coming to take everything out of my house. That ladies and gentlemen, is the country that we live in.’
The video appears to show multiple uniformed officers in what looks like Fox’s living room as he sits on a sofa watching them, dressed in a grey suit and smoking a cigar
The footage appears to show multiple uniformed officers inside Fox’s home
The actor appeared on Maajid Nawaz’s Warrior Creed podcast on Tuesday – on the Rumble platform – to ‘encourage mass removal of the surveillance state’
It appeared to show multiple officers in what looks like Fox’s living room as he sits on a sofa watching them, dressed in a grey suit and smoking.
Who are the ULEZ ‘Blade Runners’?
In recent months the ‘Blade Runners’ have brought misery to Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ expansion.
By targeting ULEZ cameras in parts of London where the £12.50-a-day charge has been introduced, the vigilantes have tried their best to disrupt the scheme.
Cameras have been covered with sticky spray, vandalised and even cut down the polices they are attached to.
The secretive group has vowed to get rid of all Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras and has taken credit for hundreds of them being damaged.
Taking their name from the dystopian 1982 science fiction film in which the eponymous Blade Runners hunt down bio-engineered humanoids, members insist the cameras are a form of control over ordinary people.
One Blade Runner told MailOnline earlier this year the ULEZ was a ‘way to try to… restrict our movements’.
They said: ‘Everything we are doing is for our own freedoms.
‘It’s the tip of the iceberg. We do not live in a democracy.
‘We will fight with everything we have for our freedoms.’
The Met Police said in a statement: ‘On Wednesday 4, October officers arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to ULEZ cameras and encouraging or assisting offences to be committed.
‘He was arrested in Stockwell and has been taken to a South London police station where he remains in custody.’
Later the same day, GB News said it had ‘ended its employment relationship’ with Laurence Fox following comments he made on the channel about female journalist Ava Evans.
It comes after GB News chiefs held emergency talks at the weekend as the channel fights for its future following a series of scandals and record viewer complaints.
Regulator Ofcom has opened 12 investigations into the broadcaster, including one examining the sexist on-air comments made last week by actor Laurence Fox.
The remarks about Ms Evans led to the suspension of Fox and presenter Dan Wootton. More than 7,300 viewers complained.
It is understood that investors and managers from GB News were in contact this weekend to discuss how to move on amid the bad publicity.
‘It is crunch time for GB News,’ a former employee told The Observer. ‘They cannot just bask in notoriety forever because they do need to make some money and they need to keep the right to call themselves a channel for news programmes.’
Last week the channel apologised after Fox attacked Ms Evans, a correspondent for the news website JOE, in an on-air rant on Tuesday evening. Fox said ‘Who would want to sh*g that?’ and described her as a ‘little woman’.
He claimed his remarks were in response to comments made by Ms Evans on BBC’s Politics Live, when she was accused of being dismissive about men’s mental health issues.
Ms Evans said Fox’s comments were ‘unforgivable’ and that a responsible broadcaster should never have allowed the rant to go as far as it did. According to sources at GB News, Wootton was suspended for ignoring instructions to stop Fox, which were being relayed by senior management via his earpiece, and for later failing to read an autocue apology on air. He apologised the next day.
The Blade Runners are a group of people who are targeting ULEZ cameras in London and vandalising them
Laurence Fox pictured on the Triggernometry podcast on Friday
Fox was suspended for his on-air rant about Ms Evans after her previous comments about male suicide. Pictured: Ms Evans appearing on the Politics JOE podcast
Speaking on the Triggernometry podcast with comedians Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin, actor-turned-political activist Fox said he had become ’emotional’ as he felt Ms Evans had made light of male mental health struggles.
He admitted the remarks were ‘crass’ but said he didn’t feel they ‘merited the wall-to-wall’ media coverage they have received in recent days and the chaos it has brought the news channel.
Speaking on Friday after his suspension, Fox told the Triggernometry podcast that he regretted the tone of his remarks on Dan Wootton’s show the Tuesday before.
READ MORE HERE: ‘Blade Runner’ vows they won’t stop destroying cameras until Sadiq Khan ends London’s hated ULEZ expansion
When the hosts remarked to Fox that ‘in the cold light of day, it [the clip] doesn’t look good does it?’, he responded by admitting: ‘No.’
He said that he had ‘strong feelings’ on the show after being riled by comments Ms Evans had previously made when she was appearing on the BBC speaking about the topic of male suicide, in which she called for a minister of mental health for everyone in government, dismissing the suggestion of just a men’s mental health minister.
He told the podcast: ‘When I listen back to it now, it’s just kind of crass. It’s the kind of thing you’d say in the pub.
‘I think I made the point which was the point I wanted to make, which is when you’ve got a misandrist fourth wave feminist who wants men to be terrified and scared of women, who tweets pictures of herself saying ‘I’m socially distancing from men’, I’m just like ‘stop’.
‘Instead of dismantling her ideas I just said ‘I can’t think of a single man who’d want to s*** you, I mean which self-respecting man would want to s*** you?’ which was also trying to be funny. Big mistake.’
The father-of-two said had ‘demeaned’ Ms Evans and apologised, but said: ‘I don’t think it’s misogyny or anything like that. I think it’s disrespectful.’
Source: Read Full Article