Streetlight banner about murderers will be removed from downtown Guelph

The Downtown Guelph Business Association announced late Monday afternoon it will remove a controversial streetlight banner after earlier saying it would stay up. 

The city's mayor publicly called for the "insensitive" and "ill conceived" banner to be removed. 

The banner is part of a project which saw 151 unique banners hung from streetlights. Each banner depicts a historic event, person or place in Guelph from 1867 to 2017.

• New banners celebrate every year in Guelph since 1867

The 1986 banner features the faces of the Wood brothers, who were convicted that year for murdering 21-year-old Karen Thomson.

Marty Williams, executive director of the Downtown Guelph Business Association which is behind the project, said the Wood brothers banner would come down overnight. 

"We heard from a lot of people who thought that the original banner was insensitive to the victims and their families.  While that was never our intention, we understand their point of view and are sorry for any distress this may have caused," Williams said in a statement. 

Mayor Cam Guthrie was a vocal opponent of the banner. 

"This banner @DowntownGuelph to celebrate Canada's 150th is insensitive, ill-conceived and should be removed. #Guelph," Mayor Cam Guthrie tweeted Saturday evening.

Decision reversed

Earlier Monday Williams defended the banner, the project and the people who worked on it.

"I'm taken aback by some of the reactions," Williams told CBC News.

"If people think in any which way that we're celebrating these murderous thugs, these people that were extorting money from people and they were just horrible, horrible people. And they were caught and convicted and finally deported. So I guess, if there's a celebratory fact in this, it's that our police and criminal justice system work."

He noted Guthrie didn't contact him to talk about the banner before posting the tweet.

"I respect that he has the right to an opinion and that he can say, in his opinion, it's the wrong thing," Williams said.

"But it would have been really good to been able to talk to him about it first. [We] didn't get a chance to talk to him about it first and that's really unfortunate."

Brothers notorious criminals

Brothers Philip, David and Colin Wood were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after they killed Thomson — who was due to give evidence against Colin Wood in another court case.

A website set up to give more background on the downtown banners notes the Wood family emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1965. There were four sons — Douglas being the fourth — and they started causing trouble in their teenage years. They had more than 100 criminal convictions, including drug trafficking, assault and robbery.

They Wood brothers were dubbed the Canadian Krays. Twin brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray were English gangsters in the 1950s and 1960s, and were recently the subject of a movie called Legend, starring Tom Hardy who played both brothers.

Three Wood brothers served time in prison for Thomson's murder, then were deported to Scotland.

Douglas Wood was deported to Britain in 1985.

In an interview with the Glasgow Evening Times in 2000, Philip Wood said he just wanted to disappear into Scotland.

"I deserved what I got," he told the newspaper. "I did 16 years in a prison cell to reflect on it. There is nothing positive about someone dying and there is also nothing positive about a man staying in jail all these years. But it happened and it's a chapter in my life that I wish hadn't."

'It was the biggest story'

Williams said the Woods case "was a huge, big deal" in Guelph.

He also noted the point of the banner project was not to just show all the great things that have happened in Guelph but to tell the city's story — and that includes the bad things.

"If we were just trying to celebrate in that way, we would have certainly not been putting up floods and fires and destruction," he said.

"We are simply recalling the reportage and the true story that it was, as it was the biggest story of that particular year and we're saying that's a part of our history, too," he said.

"I think that it stands that there's a very good reason for it, too. We didn't do any of this lightly. It was very thoughtful and we think it's a fantastic project and I'm sorry that it's getting this focus rather than the focus on the 150 other banners."

Banner's future to be discussed at board meeting

Williams said he also defends the people behind the banner project.

It was the biggest story of that particular year and we're saying that's a part of our history, too.- Marty Williams, executive director of the Downtown Guelph Business Association

"In my role, I'm certainly responsible for those banners being up there, but I have a group of staff and people that we are working with who have put their heart and soul into this project and hundreds of hours and lots of thinking and lots of research," he said, noting Guthrie will stand up for city staff members when people call them out for mistakes or problems on social media.

"I feel the need to defend them and the process that they undertook to mount this project. Coming from the mayor, who's very defensive of city staff, I think it's too bad that this has come out this way."