Media centre

Friday 26 Nov 2004

OUTRAGE OVER WIMBLEDON GRAFFITI ARTIST’S LENIENT SENTENCE

Region & Route:

| Southern: Wessex

| Southern

Admitting to 106 offences of graffiti and over £20,000 worth of damage, a 20 year-old Wimbledon man received only 160 hours of community service and a three year Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO). Superintendent Simon Ovens said:  “I am appalled by the leniency of the sentence he received and feel let down by the courts.  The police, the Local Authority and Network Rail have invested hundreds of hours in bringing the case together.” Many of the 106 offences of graffiti were carried out to railway property, and were included in the prosecution. A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We wanted to help the police as much as possible and supplied them with photographic and financial evidence. Graffiti is an anti social problem, which blights the railway network. These people might think they are artists, but they are not.  They are vandals and are destroying our environment. “We are disappointed with the sentence but this will not put us off assisting police and local authority graffiti teams from bringing criminals to justice.”