Is the council removing memorial for Fusilier Lee Rigby – Fact Check

Rumours online claim that a memorial for Lee Rigby, a soldier who was killed on the streets of London, is being removed by the Greenwich council

MISLEADING, OUTDATED

An example of the rumour as it appeared on social media in 2018 is below.

So Greenwich council are set to remove the lee Rigby stone that was laid at the Rigby site on Friday night. Now we really need to shame them everyone please share this post. As you can see they have already started to dig it out.

Fusilier Lee Rigby was murdered in May 2013 by two men on the streets of London in an act of terrorism. Both men were later shot by armed police and subsequently imprisoned, one for a whole life order (no possibility of parole.)

It is first important to note that such rumours concerning Rigby’s memorial are not directed at the permanent Lee Rigby memorial, which was erected in 2015 at St. George’s Garrison Church in Woolwich, close to where he died, at the request of Rigby’s family. There are no plans to remove this memorial, but rumours being passed around the Internet have been mis-communicated and led many to believe that this was the case.

The rumours are actually in response to an unofficial paving stone memorial that was placed by a group known as 5 Wishes that was adorned with Lee Rigby’s name and was placed on the street where Rigby was murdered. The stone was installed in early November 2018, without permission or consent from the local council.

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Soon after it was placed, rumours circulated that Greenwich Council was planning on removing the unofficial memorial. However, when this first began to spread, this was not technically true either, as the council soon issued a statement claiming that no decision had been made as to the future of the paving stone.

“Over the weekend a member of the public replaced a paving slab by the site of Fusilier Rigby’s murder with a memorial stone. Rumours are circulating on social media that we are planning to remove that memorial this week – these rumours are not true. We continue to talk to members of the Rigby family and have not reached a decision on the new memorial stone.”

UPDATE June 2020:

In 2019, the council – after speaking to the family of Lee Rigby – did opt to remove the unofficial memorial stone and gave it to Lyn Rigby, Lee’s mother. It was replaced by another official memorial for Lee – consisting of a tree and plaque – that was erected near the site of his murder.

Since the rumour above broadly and vaguely asserts that the council will remove the memorial of Lee Rigby, and omits the most pertinent facts (such as 1. it was an unofficial memorial, 2. at the time of writing no decision had been made on whether it would be removed and 3. when it was removed it was replaced by another memorial) we rank this claim misleading.