hennemusic

Above: Charlie Gilmour arrives at Kingston crown court with his father, David Gilmour. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has been jailed for 16 months after admitting violent disorder during a student fees protest in central London last December.

The Guardian reports Charlie Gilmour, 21, was seen hanging from a union flag on the Cenotaph and later leaped on the bonnet of a Jaguar car forming part of the royal convoy taking the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall to the royal variety performance that was attacked by demonstrators. He also set fire to papers outside the supreme court in Parliament Square and was seen kicking at a window of a Topshop branch in Oxford Street and later carrying the leg of a mannequin. Students attacking the store caused £50,000 damage.

Gilmour, now short-haired, dressed in a suit and accompanied by his mother, the writer Polly Samson, and David Gilmour, had earlier buried his face in his hands when the court was shown video footage of him at the demonstration shouting: "We'll eat fire and ice and destruction because we're angry, very angry. We refuse to do anything we're told. They broke the moral law. We're going to break all the laws. Arson!"

He admitted the offence of violent disorder, but denied hurling a bin at the vehicle, though Judge Nicholas Price, at Kingston crown court, said he was satisfied that Gilmour had been responsible.

The court was told that the public-school-educated second year history undergraduate at Girton College, Cambridge – who had said he did not realize the significance of the Cenotaph – had drunk whisky and taken LSD and valium in the hours before the demonstration.

Gilmour had spent the day with protesters in Parliament Square before moving on to Regent Street and Oxford Street. After being photographed swinging from the Cenotaph – which he described as a "moment of idiocy" – he was caught on camera alongside the royal convoy.

Gilmour, of Billingshurst, West Sussex, admitted swinging from the flag on the Cenotaph although he was not charged with that. He was arrested four days after the demonstration after publicly apologizing for swinging on the war memorial.

Passing sentence, Judge Price accepted that Gilmour's antics at the Cenotaph on Whitehall did not form part of the violent disorder, but accused him of disrespect to the war dead. "Such outrageous and deeply offensive behavior gives a clear indication of how out of control you were that day. It caused public outrage and understandably so."