Retired Engineer Blows Up ULEZ Camera with Homemade Bomb
Retired electrical engineer Kevin Rees, 63, is in hot water at Woolwich Crown Court. He stands accused of blowing up a ULEZ camera on Willersley Avenue using a crude homemade bomb on December 6, 2023. The case is sending shockwaves through London’s anti-ULEZ campaigners.
CCTV Shows Bizarre Movements and Memory Lapse
Security footage reveals Rees leaving his Harcourt Avenue home at 6.25pm carrying a “bag of tools.” Forty minutes later, he returned with the bag missing. When pressed by prosecutor Simon Denison KC about where he’d been during that time, Rees admitted: “It’s almost a blank.”
Rees claimed he spent the evening at a friend’s house, but CCTV showed he left that friend’s place mid-afternoon and never came back later. Despite clear evidence, Rees insisted, “I was not at his. But still, in my head, I was at his, for some reason.”
Mysterious Tools, Deleted Evidence, and Open Hatred for ULEZ
When questioned about the bag of tools, Rees said it was for a job at a friend’s—but couldn’t name the friend. He admitted he must have left the tools somewhere that evening but had no clue where.
Minutes after returning home, Rees took screenshots of local news and Facebook posts reporting the loud bang and the blown-up ULEZ camera. The next day, these screenshots mysteriously vanished. Rees blamed it on accidental deletion:
“If you had actually checked, you would find that I have deleted dozens and dozens at the same time, but these are the only ones you printed out,”
he told the court.
Rees openly expressed his loathing for the ULEZ scheme and Mayor Sadiq Khan, saying, “I dislike him, dislike what he has done to London.”
Damage Chaos and Serious Charges
The court also heard the ULEZ camera had been vandalised earlier on the same day by a man named Stephen Harwood-Stamper, who pleaded guilty to criminal damage. The explosion happened afterwards when the camera was already on the ground.
Rees denies any contact with Harwood-Stamper and claims he first learned about the blast from a local Facebook group. He now faces multiple serious charges: one count of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury, plus three counts related to possession of prohibited stun guns found during his arrest.
The trial is ongoing.
