Luton’s Remembrance Day service was disrupted when PCC candidate Kevin Carroll allegedly objected to Green Party campaigner Marc Scheimann laying a wreath of white peace poppies.
It’s a tradition Mr Scheimann has carried out for 24 years in memory of his German and British grandfathers who died on opposite sides in World War Two.
The disabled father-of-one was forced to throw himself over the wreath to protect it from a woman demonstrator who attempted to remove it.
He said: “Kevin Carroll waved a clenched fist at me and my four-year-old son and started shouting aggressively.
“He called me a scumbag and said when he was police commissioner he would make sure I went to jail for this.”
A bystander described what happened as “an absolute disgrace. I’ve never experienced anything like it in the 48 years I’ve been going to the Cenotaph.
“It shows no respect for the men who never came back, who gave their lives for our freedom.”
Kevin Carroll claimed he told police officers: “It will cause massive offence if Mr Scheimann is not prevented from laying his wreath of white poppies as they symbolise cowardice.
“But he was allowed to lay it and then a drunk woman tried to remove it.”
He denied making aggressive gestures and added: “Remembrance is to pay honour but he was just there to desecrate it.”
A police spokeswoman said: “I can confirm a member of the public did voice his opinion about a different coloured poppy wreath being laid at the remembrance. He was given words of advice by officers in attendance. No reports of disorder were received, no arrests were made and the service ended peacefully.”