A prolific graffiti tagger who was caught red-handed in Brighton has been let off with a caution and a day’s unpaid work.
Sussex Police said: “A man has admitted daubing his graffiti tag more than 80 times across Brighton city centre.
“The 22-year-old was arrested after a sharp-eyed CCTV operator spotted him spray painting his tag LABR across various shop buildings in North Street in the early hours on (Wednesday) 3 April.
“Detectives and prevention officers worked with the Brighton and Hove Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) and the Brighton and Hove graffiti team to investigate.”
Detective Sergeant Joe Jardine said: “The tag in question – the letters LABR – was prevalent across Brighton city centre.
“With the help of our partners, we identified 81 individual tags and numerous separate crimes were recorded.
“The suspect, who had been released under investigation was re-arrested, his home searched and additional evidence seized.
“Once confronted with the evidence, including a spreadsheet of tags across the city, he admitted responsibility for all of these tags.”
BCRP nightsafe manager Kylie Wroe said: “Graffiti is a serious problem in a city that receives 11 million visitors a year.
“Furthermore, it is a serious problem for the residents that live in the city.
“We were proud to work with our partners to address this issue and make Brighton and Hove a pleasant place to live, work and visit.”
Sussex Police added: “The man, who was not known to police, accepted a conditional caution, which included doing a day of unpaid work for the city council as part of a community payback scheme.”
Ridiculous….the punishment should fit the crime. I feel cheated. Pay the council to catch him, pay the cleanup crew, pay the cost of repair to property. And the thug gets a days “unpaid work” where he can sit and do nothing as he cant be forced to actually work…….how about a fine and removing access to public finances till he pays the cost of cleaning up after his vandalism.
Or is that to much of an affront to his human rights.
Makes me sick.
Let off with just one day’s unpaid work as punishment! Time to start tagging police vehicles and then we will see a sensible justice being delivered!
We could hope his unpaid work involves cleaning off his tags but it probably won’t be.
I see the recently closed Boots and Co-Op on the London Road have been daubed already.
Criminal damage…
That’s just ridiculous! Meanwhile Brighton is denied 5G because it causes “visual clutter” not as much as this vandal. The council is beyond incompetent.
It is so rare that these vandals are caught, and when they are they should be severely dealt with. This is a slap in the face for the residents of the City. This case should go before a jury of Brighton residents, then we might see justice.
Pathetic sentence. The culprit should be made to scrub off his/her scribble and complete further community service.
It beggars belief that this can be seen as discouragement for taggers to carry on as normal. Surely the least punishment would be to clean up every property he defaced with his mindless tagging. Mind bogglingly stupid of whomever set the sentence.
Good. Jesus Christ is Brighton only full of pathetically out of touch boomers or what? What a waste of public resources, don’t the “police” in Brighton have any real criminals to pursue? I’d bet my bottom dollar that every last person who commented before me is a 60+ year old who’s idea of art is some tacky print from ikea, can’t you folks just hurry up and die already so us progressive, modern individuals can enjoy actual, current art. Kthanks <3