A PEACE loving Colchester resident has decided to fill in his census form in the most annoying way possible – in protest over the company which owns part of the contract for it.

The Office for National Statistics awarded the Census Questionnaire Management contract to Leidos Innovations UK in October 2018.

Leidos Innovations UK, a subsidiary of Fortune 500 company Leidos, was awarded a contract with potential value of up to £65.1 million for the 2021 Census.

However, Robbie Spence, 59, of Heath Road, Prettygate, is joining environmental activists in a creative protest against the Leidos due to its involvement in defence contracts.

It is a legal requirement to complete the census.

Mr Spence said he will obey the law but is going to make it as costly as possible for Leidos to process his census form.

As a subscriber to Peace News, Mr Spence saw the idea for the protest in the publication and decided to join in.

He has ordered a paper census form and will write his answers upside down to make it difficult to process by computer.

Mr Spence said: “There are lots of interesting ways to make it more costly for Leidos to process our information including stapling the correct answers to the form instead of writing them in the boxes provided.

“I don’t advocate people do this around petty things like potholes.

“I would only advocate doing this sort of thing for a bigger principle.”

Leidos Innovations UK is a company under the umbrella of Leidos focusing on IT.

Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos focuses on defence and works with US Government customers including NASA and the branches of the military.

Leidos UK was contacted for comment but did comment at the time of going to press.