In Desperate Plea, Man Defaces QueenElizabeth's Portrait

Culled from ABC The queen's official Diamond Jubilee portrait was defaced with spray paint today by a "desperate father" who campaigners say was wrongly separated from his two daughters and was "trying to appeal to the queen for help." Forty-one-year-old Tim Haries used turquoise paint tospray the word "help" across the queen's portrait in Westminster Abbey, the site of her coronation almost exactly 60 years ago, when he was tackled by security guards, according to police and the campaign group Fathers4Justice. Haries was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, police said. Westminster Abbey said it would assess the damage to the painting, which was commissioned for the Diamond Jubilee last year and shows a contemplative Queen Elizabeth IIin the abbey, wearing her state dress and a crimson velvet robe of state. Fathers 4 Justice denied Haries acted on the group's behalf, but identified Haries asa member and portrayed him as representative of a societyfull of fathers improperly kept away from their children by family courts.