Police Visit Business Owner After Halloween Display Horrifies UK Locals


Police in Havant, England, have ordered the owner of a café to take down portions his Halloween display that featured a gory murder scene, including a baby covered in “blood.”

There’s Halloween fun and there’s also overdoing it, it seems, as a UK business owner was asked to make drastic changes to his Halloween display after neighbors complained.

After complaints from residents in the area, three police officers visited Ian Payne, 48, at the Memory Lane Café in the English town and told him to clean up his act. Payne was particularly ordered to remove the mannequin of a mutilated baby under anti-social behavior legislation in the country, which covers taste and decency.

According to the Daily Mail, the Halloween display was made up of mannequins, including a masked murderer in the process of killing a woman with duct tape over her mouth and holding the mutilated baby. The mannequin of a child with a knife is its head was sprawled close by on the floor, and the entire scene was liberally splattered with fake blood. There was also police tape in the display, which the officials did not approve of.

Payne has since removed the mannequin of the baby and the police tape, but reportedly the body of the child, complete with a knife in the back of its head, is still on display.

Payne, who is a father of three children, says they “do a lot for the community and hold a lot of events.” He added that the Halloween display in the rock ‘n’ roll-themed café was just for publicity.

He admitted that the baby did look a bit gory but that the blood was just tomato ketchup and that more people loved the display than hated it, adding, “Bad publicity is better than no publicity.”

The window display was reportedly put together as part of a local competition and now consists of the woman mannequin wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask (as made famous by the films starring Anthony Hopkins), who is apparently the murderer. The mannequin is coated with fake blood and is grasping a severed hand. A severed arm is displayed close by on a chest of drawers.

Close to this can be seen another female mannequin, covered in gore, with one hand chopped off and her mouth covered in duct tape. The mannequin of a child is still there, knife in the back of its head in the front of the window display.

Speaking of the Halloween display, a police spokesman said, “Officers have spoken to the business owner to make them aware of concerns raised by members of the public and the display has subsequently been altered.”

A police volunteer had reportedly given the business owner a section of police tape, which is against policy regarding police property. The tape was then removed by the business owner.

According to the Mirror, one of the local residents against the Halloween window display is Lorraine Blackburn. Blackburn lost her son Owen at the age of 3 months and described Payne’s display as being “totally insensitive.”

“It’s just wrong – it’s sick. I don’t know why they would include something like that.

“Surely it would make people avoid the place rather than shop there?”

According to Councillor Mike Fairhurst, who represents the area, he hadn’t actually seen the Halloween display, but he said if it contained a mutilated baby in the window, the business owner had obviously gone too far.

“He has made a mistake and I’m glad he has taken it down.”

What do you think readers? Did the business owner go a bit too far?

[Photo cropped and resized via Flickr by Steven Depolo / CC BY 2.0]

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