The man suspected of throwing eggs at the King stood to be the Green Party’s candidate at York local elections, it has emerged tonight (Wednesday).
He is Patrick Thelwell, who stood as the Hull Road candidate at the 2019 elections to City of York Council.
Mr Thelwell narrowly missed out on being elected for any of the three seats in that ward, coming fourth with 626 votes.
Tonight, York Green Party leader Cllr Andy D’Agorne distanced himself from the party’s former candidate.
He told YorkMix: “He is not involved in the local party and not on the list of selected candidates.
“Action such as alleged throwing of eggs is totally unacceptable.”
Mr Thelwell is also a student at the University of York. A spokesperson for the university said it was “appalled” by the images and would be reviewing the incident in line with its misconduct procedures.
Mr Thelwell was arrested after eggs were thrown at the King and Queen Consort as they greeted the civic party at Micklegate Bar this morning.
All of the eggs missed, before the King and Queen Consort were ushered away.
North Yorkshire Police confirmed that a 23-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence following an incident on Micklegate.
He currently remains in police custody, a spokesperson said.
While he was the 19-year-old candidate for Hull Road, Mr Thelwell was arrested as part of an Extinction Rebellion protest blocking Waterloo Bridge in London in April 2019.
Two years later, he came to prominence in York as part of the Barbican Community Centre group, who squatted on undeveloped land owned by Persimmon next to the Barbican Centre.
They were forcibly evicted from that squat, and he told YorkMix: “They’ve kicked my door in. They’ve kicked my head in. My girlfriend’s crying her eyes out.”
He went on to lead a squat in the former Fibbers music venue on Toft Green.
They wanted to turn it into a café, library and music space. But they were evicted weeks later.
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