Prolific Quinton bus vandals sentenced after investigation (From Halesowen News)

Prolific Quinton bus vandals sentenced after investigation

3:40pm Monday 4th February 2013 in News

A QUINTON vandal has been jailed and his two fellow graffiti artists fined after defacing buses across Birmingham and the Black Country.

The three young men, aged between 20 and 24, were arrested in November following two attacks on buses.

Investigators from National Express identified a series of graffiti tags and calculated the damage of the graffiti to be over £1000.

The information was passed to the West Midlands Police Safer Travel team who trawled through CCTV to find those responsible.

Sergeant Adrian Brown, from the Safer Travel team, said: "This case should serve as a warning to anyone who commits graffiti across the transport networks here in the West Midlands that we will find those responsible and bring them before the courts.

"These young men are now banned from carrying items that would enable them to commit similar acts in the future and if found to be breaching the orders then they could find themselves back before the courts and facing imprisonment.

"Graffiti is unacceptable to passengers and is costly for the travel companies to clear.

"We urge anyone who spots such crimes being committed, or knows of anyone involved in such activity to call their local police."

The three arrested men, all from Quinton, were charged with criminal damage and were sent to Birmingham Magistrates Court in November, where the 20-year-old admitted his actions, however his two accomplices entered not guilty pleas and went to trial.

On 30 January the pair, aged 23 and 24, were found guilty of criminal damage.

The 20-year-old man was ordered to pay £255 in costs and was sentenced to four weeks in a young offenders institution.

The two men, who were convicted alongside him, were both ordered to pay £450 costs and were handed Anti Social Behaviour Orders to prevent them from possessing any item that could be used for graffiti purposes.