KNOE (and other 'taggers')

Press release from the British Transport Police (15/07/2011):

Quote

MAN BEHIND 'TOX' TAG JAILED FOR 27 MONTHS

A man who sprayed graffiti in London and across England, causing disruption to passengers and damage to the railway has been jailed for 27 months.

Daniel Halpin (24), of Camden, North London, was jailed at Blackfriars Crown Court on Friday, 15 July after he was earlier found guilty of seven counts of criminal damage.

Halpin and five others were arrested after a British Transport Police (BTP^▸ ) operation identified tags in London, Glasgow, Bristol, Leicester, Market Harborough, Kettering, Chippenham, and even on a funeral home in Bath.

Halpin sprayed graffiti on buses in Brixton, and on rail property in Southfields, as well as in Glasgow and Linlithgo between 2007 and 2010.

The court heard how officers discovered various documentation proving that unemployed student Halpin had been paid vast amounts of money to reproduce his tag and that he was also given a holiday to Thailand to work in a graffiti studio.

Daniel Fenlon (25), of Luckwell Road, Bristol, was convicted of one count of criminal damage after spraying a shop front in Park Street, Bristol, on December 25, 2008 and was sentenced to two months imprisonment. He was earlier cleared of eight further criminal damage charges.

Also sentenced was Nicholas Rowley (24), of Clapham, south London, who received 12 months imprisonment after admitting six counts of criminal damage.

At his trial Halpin denied 13 counts of criminal damage. He was convicted of seven but cleared of six.

At charge the total amount of damage was estimated to be in excess of ^200,000.

Detective Constable Will Livings, the investigating officer, said: ^The costs of graffiti are substantial for the railway industry in terms of repairs and clean-up, and can leave permanent scars on the infrastructure. The financial costs have to be borne by someone, and that someone is ultimately the fare-paying passenger. Trains are taken out of service for cleaning, sometimes for days at a time, causing disruption and delays for passengers.^

Sentencing today, Judge Clarke said: "There has to be a deterrent aspect. These offences have gone on, in your own admission, since the year 2000. You have been using TOX for a decade. Therefore I am sentencing you accordingly. Although you and others regard yourselves as artistic, there is nothing artistic about what you do."

Superintendent Andrew Ball said: ^Lets be clear, this is a crime on a large scale with real victims. It is planned and well organised with the sole intention of causing as much damage and disruption to passengers as possible. Graffiti also involves serious risks to those who go onto the tracks, often not knowing when a train will come or if the tracks are live."

Note: Daniel Fenlon of Bristol is (hopefully was) CK1.