{"id":198515,"date":"2026-09-06T21:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T21:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/198515\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T21:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T21:41:08","slug":"raise-the-colours-founder-charged-with-14-offences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/198515\/","title":{"rendered":"Raise the Colours founder charged with 14 offences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The founder of an activist group which has been putting Union Jack and St George&#8217;s Cross flags on lampposts has been charged with a string of offences including racially aggravated harassment, threatening behaviour and assault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ryan Bridge, 45, of Blackwell, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, has been erecting flags in the Midlands and the south of England since last summer as part of Raise the Colours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Thames Valley Police said Bridge had been charged with 14 offences from a two-month period in Oxfordshire earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He is due to appear at Oxford Magistrates&#8217; Court on 3 November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The offences are:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Seven counts of using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Three counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of, or provoke, unlawful violence<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Two counts of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One count of racially aggravated fear of violence<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One count of common assault<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In July, Oxfordshire County Council was granted a High Court injunction to stop people placing flags near highways because of safety concerns, trespass and obstruction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Birmingham City Council has applied for a similar injunction which will be heard at the High Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Birmingham on <a data-ylk=\"slk:BBC Sounds;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/curation\/p0cjf1dh?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Sounds<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BirminghamBBC\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcmtd\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> and <a data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcbirmingham\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of an activist group which has been putting Union Jack and St George&#8217;s Cross flags on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62211,60529,570,5070,17,10360,11355,50853,62212,62213],"class_list":["post-198515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-bbc-birmingham","tag-bbc-sounds","tag-birmingham-city-council","tag-bridge","tag-canada","tag-court","tag-high-court","tag-oxfordshire-county-council","tag-ryan-bridge","tag-st-georges-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}