Graffiti pair told to pay back community

IAN CLARKE June 5, 2004

Two teenagers responsible for an eight-month graffiti spree in a Norfolk market town were yesterday ordered to pay back the local community.

Jason Daymond and James Bailey, both 18, scrawled on 130 buildings and walls around Dereham and it is estimated that the clean-up bill has run into thousands of pounds.

Central Norfolk Magistrates at Swaffham heard that the duo put their so-called graffiti "tags" on shops, schools, council-owned properties, alleyways, the rugby club, an underpass and houses.

Both said the graffiti painting had "got out of hand".

Police welcomed the court action, which followed a long investigation and "good old-fashioned police work".

Dereham-based PCs Mark Barron, Colin Barrett and David Lake, police community support officer Hazel Grimmer and Sgt Matt Ellis spent many hours on the beat and talked to other youngsters to find out who was behind the growing problem of graffiti.

Music student Daymond, of Sedge Road, Scarning, near Dereham, pleaded guilty to four charges of criminal damage and asked for 63 similar offences to be considered.

Unemployed Bailey, of Baxter Road, Dereham, admitted three criminal damage charges and asked for 55 others to be considered.

Both were given a community punishment order, involving unpaid work in the local community. Daymond will have to do 120 hours and Bailey 100 hours.

Magistrates also imposed an anti-social behaviour order on the pair, which threatens up to five years in prison if they deface or damage property or carry materials such as spray paint or permanent marker pens, or if they incite or encourage others to cause damage.

The spree started last September and resulted in many complaints to police.

Josephine Jones, prosecuting, said a wide range of sizes of graffiti pictures had been scrawled in a large number of locations in all parts of the town.

She said it had been extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible, to remove the paint.

Miss Jones said many organis-ations had been affected.

Phillip Mansfield, mitigating, said Bailey and Daymond had both immediately owned up in full and frank police interviews.

Both apologised for what they had done. They said the graffiti painting had started on a small scale and got out of hand.

Mr Mansfield said Bailey had been through a difficult period in his life.

Chairman of the magistrates Julia Richardson said the criminal damage had been "deliberate and over a protracted period" and they needed to "pay the community back".

After the case, Sgt Ellis said: "This is an excellent result."

He said officers had tracked the duo down through nicknames and their tags.

"It may be seen by some as low-level crime but it has affected the whole community," he said.

"There has been good old-fashioned police work."

Sgt Ellis estimated thousands of pounds of damage had been caused and "at least 90pc" of graffiti in Dereham had been left by Bailey and Daymond.