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Graffiti continued
There is video evidence showing 8 young people (boys and girls) out and about at 1 am doing graffiti. If your children are out around the village at this time can you please ask them whether they can provide any insight to who the perpetrators are since the community has to take responsibility for the action of these vandals.
We have asked Sevenoaks District Council and the Police to respond on the graffiti issue. Beat officer, Geordie Laidlow said: "I can't give you too much information about on-going prosecutions or intelligence that we have on certain suspects. I can however ask the community to report these acts of graffiti to the Police so we can gather evidence and obtain statements. This act of criminal damage is so visible and un-sightly I would expect a positive outcome from the problem. This issue has been highlighted as the single most raised subject of complaint. I am more than happy to give a personal response to those who have made contact with you."
Supt Andy Pritchard added: "I would reinforce Geordie's point that we need members of the community to come forward with information on new incidents of graffiti and knowledge of who the offenders are. Graffiti is a very difficult crime to prosecute as there are seldom witnesses and the act itself is both ubiquitous by nature, and takes a few seconds to deliver with little commotion. However with good community intelligence, we can considerably improve our opportunity to identify and prosecute the offenders.
"In addition to this, I agree that the best form of Crime Reduction is Crime Prevention, and this is both the most positive and effective way of reducing this type of issue in the community. The police will support in any way we can the engagement of youth in the community in constructive activity that lessens their need to act in such an irresponsible way."
Whilst removal of graffiti is the responsibility of the landowner, the Sevenoaks District Community is keen to help maintain a clean, graffiti-free environment. It works in Partnership with Kent Probation Grimebuster Team which is able to clean large graffiti from all surface types including brick. However, response time is slow because SDC only has use of the service on 2 days a month, the whole District has to be covered in this time and because the equipment is housed in Tunbridge Wells by the time the team has travelled to and from South Darenth, say, there is only 3
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