Pea shooting champion threatened with fine over phallic bush

A keen gardener was stunned when police threatened him with a fine for a public order offence because his garden hedge art work was shaped — like a phallus. Green-fingered Ian Ashmeade, 53, snipped a bush on his driveway into the offending shape in 2002 as a laugh after he noticed the shrub had started to grow that way on its own. But a police officer visited his home last week and threatened him with an £80 fine for a public order offence if he did not ”modify” the topiary.



Father-of-three Ian – a pea shooting champion – has now trimmed the shrub into the shape of a tube, with a pea emerging from the tip. IT worker Ian, from Haddenham, near Ely, Cambs., said he is ”disappointed” that someone has complained about his creation. He said: ”The topiary has been in its pruned state for more than eight years and nobody has had a problem with it.

”Why somebody has taken offence to it now is very difficult to understand and I’m quite disappointed. I think it’s very sad. A policeman came around to my house and told my wife that someone had complained about the bush. He said that if I didn’t do something I would be facing an £80 fine and could be charged.”



The policeman spoke to Ian’s wife on October 1 and ordered the bush be ”modified” by October 6 or the couple would face a fine. Ian, who won the World Pea Shooting Championships in Witcham, Ely, Cambs., in July this year, pruned the offending shrub into the shape of a pea shooter on October 5. A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Constabulary confirmed an officer threatened Ian with a fine following a complaint about his shrub.