'I’m embarrassed', says toilet graffiti dauber at age of 62

A man has been ordered to pay compensation after graffiting racist abuse on the doors of Hebden Bridge train station.

James Allen, 62, of Wood Villas, Hebden Bridge, appeared unrepresented at Calderdale Magistrates’ Court. He admitted causing £700 damage and possessing two bags of cannabis.

On seven different occasions between April 23 and June 7, station staff found graffiti supporting the English Defence League daubed on the back of doors in the male toilets. An undercover officer from British Transport Police went to the station on June 7 to wait for the culprit. He saw Allen enter the toilets at 1.41pm.

Paul Ramsey, prosecuting, said: “He sat on a bench watching all men who were going in. A minute later Allen was seen to leave his bike on the platform. The defendant exited two minutes later with what was believed to be a white marker pen in his right jeans pocket.”

After the officer checked the door, he followed Allen and arrested him. While searching Allen, he found two bags of cannabis. [Allen] admitted both offences to police.

Allen told officers he was not a member of the English Defence League but he wrote graffiti in support of the group to “vent his frustration”.When asked to explain his actions to magistrates, he said he had nothing to tell them.

“I’m just embarrassed about it,” he said.

He was given a 12-month community order and told to complete 60 hours of unpaid work, pay compensation of £100 and £85 towards costs.

Halifax Courier

Jade's crossing defaced with graffiti

A memorial bridge to a young girl who died crossing the A249 has been defaced with far right nationalist graffiti.

Slogans including “kill Muslims” “keep Britain British” and “EDL” - the acronym for anti Islamist group the English Defence League - have been scratched into the moss on Jade’s Crossing in Detling.

The bridge was erected as a memorial to Jade Hobbs, who was killed along with her grandmother while crossing the busy road in 2000. The tragedy led to a successful campaign by Jade’s mother Caroline Hobbs and husband Paul to build a permanent footbridge. They have since moved from the area as the memories were too painful.

The English Defence League was formed in 2009 in response to a protest against Royal Anglian Regiment troops returning from the Afghan War. The group organises street marches purportedly against “muslim extremism.”

Kent Online

North West MEP's home targeted by far-right extremists

A Conservative North West Euro MP has hired a private security firm to guard his home because of threats from far-right extremists.

Sajjad Karim has been bombarded with offensive emails over his stance on halal and kosher meat. His home in Simonstone in the Ribble Valley has also had ‘BNP’ daubed on it in graffiti. He said he was worried about the safety of his wife and two children, aged eight and 10, while he is away in Europe. And he said he had paid for a private security firm to watch over his house 24 hours a day.

A British National Party spokesman ‘utterly condemned’ any threats.

Police are investigating an allegation of racist abuse by email. Mr Karim, who represents the North West in the European Parliament, blamed BNP supporters for the onslaught, claiming the threats had come shortly after the far-right party published an article criticising him on its website.

Mr Karim, who opposed an EU proposal that would require all ritually-slaughtered meat to be labelled, said there had been an ‘orchestrated’ campaign against him. He said: “There are perfectly legitimate arguments on both sides of the debate. But it is being hijacked and they are trying to frighten me. We have lived here for 11 years and never had anything like this. This is their way of saying ‘we know you are here’. The police are providing the best level of protection they can, but when it comes to these people I am not going to take any chances.”

Lancashire Police said it was investigating the messages and would meet the MEP this week.

John Walker, a spokesman for the BNP, said the party was campaigning on the issue of ritually slaughtered meat, which he said was ‘barbaric’. But he distanced the party from any threats, saying the BNP was being ‘demonised’. He added: “This is a common tactic of political opponents to claim they have been intimidated.”

Asian Image

Popular garage falls victim to graffiti vandals

Police have launched an investigation after a petrol station in Toddington was daubed with racist graffiti at the weekend.

The busy BP garage and its Spar supermarket in Dunstable Road were targeted by vandals overnight on Friday, with the letters ‘BNP’ sprayed repeatedly on walls, the forecourt, pumps and shop shutters. It is believed the vandalism happened between 11pm on Friday and 6am on Saturday, when the garage re-opened for business.

A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said the incident was being treated as criminal damage, and on Saturday morning officers were at the scene photographing the graffiti.

The garage, which has several Asian members of staff, last month had one of its pumps damaged when workers tried to stop a motorist driving away without paying for petrol. The garden fence of a house opposite the filling station was also damaged in a similar incident.

Jim Gledhill, chairman of Toddington Parish Council, said he was disappointed with the attack on a business popular with villagers. He said: “These are people who provide a really good service to the village, and it shouldn’t matter to anybody what their background is. It disgusts me. They had managed to clean up a lot of it but it was still very visible on the brickwork.”

Councillor Gledhill said he would be raising the issue at the parish council’s meeting last night (Wednesday), and hoped the council would be able to help the garage with the cost of the clean-up. Asked whether support for the BNP was an issue in the village, Councillor Gledhill said he thought there were a small number of people in the village with “racist views”.

“It’s a problem you wouldn’t really expect in Toddington,” he said. “I hope it’s just stupid children who will learn better in the future.”

Dunstable Today

BNP hires security guards for poster

Furious BNP chiefs have drafted in security guards - to protect a POSTER

The far-right party splashed out £2,000 on its first billboard campaign in Scotland. But just hours after the massive sign was unveiled, it was targeted by outraged protesters and torn down. And since being replaced, the poster has been pelted with paint, covered in graffiti branding the BNP "nazi scum" and even set on fire. The party has now hired two security guards to keep an eye on the Aberdeen billboard round the clock.

Barry Scott, the BNP's north east organiser, said: "We thought we might get a problem with graffiti but we never expected the poster would be destroyed. If people have a problem with the BNP we would rather they emailed us."

On their website, the BNP boasts that the poster on Aberdeen's Great Northern Road is "yet another breakthrough" for the party. But local Labour councillor George Adam said: "There are certainly people who are extremely concerned about this, who think the poster is offensive."

And Ken Ferguson, of the Scottish Socialist Party, added: "It's not surprising that a poster for the BNP has attracted hostility. Their racist views are repugnant to the vast majority of people in Scotland."

Grampian Police said four men aged between 20 and 25 have been charged in connection with three incidents involving the billboard.

Sun

Dad daubed BNP graffiti on Tyneside park

A Tyneside beauty spot was daubed with graffiti in a four-month spree by a depressed dad

British National Party member John Nichols spray painted the letters BNP on sculptures and trees in Gateshead’s Watergate Park. The 51-year-old also plastered the 158-acre countryside site with orange and green stickers on which he wrote BNP.

But his spate was halted when fed-up park staff, who had been keeping a tally of the damage, kept a watch. And Nichols, of Ebchester Avenue, Wrekenton, Gateshead, was snared acting suspiciously at the nature site.

Gateshead magistrates heard that stickers and silver paint was sprayed on sculptures, trees and signs on the reclaimed colliery site, which is located between Lobley Hill and Whickham. Prosecutor Michael Rose said staff became increasingly concerned about damage taking place at the council-run nature reserve between April and August last year. A diary was kept of the graffiti put up to try and establish a pattern and identify the person responsible.

“Forest rangers started to keep watch to try and find the person who was doing this,” he said. “On August 9, staff found these stickers in the park and noticed Nicholls bending down where subsequently stickers were found. He was photographed by a ranger and later arrested. When interviewed he made admissions but could give no reason why he did it.”

Mr Rose said the graffiti was removed. “There is no total for the cost of the repairs to the damage but it is probably considerable,” he added.

A statement from senior countryside ranger Kelly O’Sullivan was read to the court. She said because of concern about the amount of graffiti she started keeping a diary.

“I have lost count of the number of times I have had to call out the graffiti team,” she said. “Sometimes it has taken a full day to identify and remove the graffiti because of the size of the park.”

She added: “It saddens and angers me to see the park defaced in such a way. Slogans have upset our regular users to have complained.”

Unemployed Nichols was given a 12-month community order after admitting three offences of causing criminal damage. He was ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work and JPs said they hoped it could be in the park. He must also pay £100 court costs.

Defending, Mick Foley, said Nichols, who has no previous convictions, has suffered from severe depression since his partner left and moved to Kent with their two young children. Mr Foley said: “He has been a member of the BNP for four years but he isn’t an activist, he doesn’t attend meetings and doesn’t attend rallies. He would walk in the park with his dog and can’t really give an explanation why he did it. He was suffering from depression and was on medication which can make people do strange things. This doesn’t excuse it but it is the only thing he can put it down to.”

After the case, Jenny Hart from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Nichols targeted one of Tyneside’s most popular public parks causing great concern to the many people who visit it regularly.”

Chronicle Live

Racist graffiti outrage after BNP slogan daubed on Church Fenton Railway Station

Offensive BNP graffiti daubed on walls at Church Fenton Railway Station has been condemned as "racist bigotry" by the area's Conservative party candidate.

Tory candidate for Selby and Ainsty Nigel Adams said he was "appalled" at the scrawlings on the railway entrance hall after it was reported to him by a commuter who regularly uses the line. He said this kind of bigotry had no place in the district, and termed it "offensive".

He added: "This graffiti was daubed in an area very close to an Indian restaurant/takeaway. If anyone daubs BNP in big red letters near such an eaterie – the only one within 20 miles – you can only draw one conclusion. The mindless idiots who did this were trying to make a statement about race, so in that case it's racist. Any vandalism is abhorrent, but to daub BNP in big red paint outside an Indian restaurant/takeaway is clearly designed to upset the owner."

He said it was also offensive to commuters travelling to and from work, adding: "We found this so offensive, myself, my assistant and a volunteer have gone to the station and we've removed the graffiti ourselves."

Selby Rail Users' Group secretary Reg French said he had reported the graffiti to Northern Rail as soon as his group became aware of it. He added: "Any graffiti like this is appalling. The group reported this to Northern Rail on Monday as soon as we were informed of it. This is their property so we thought it best to let them deal with its removal."

Selby Times

Row over Burnley flyposting promoting BNP

A cash row has erupted over an ‘unpaid bill for fly-posting’ between Burnley’s ruling Liberal Democrats and the British National Party.

Council leader Coun Gordon Birtwistle, at a full council meeting, blasted the BNP for a series of stickers and posters which were plastered over bus shelters and walls around the May 2008 elections. He said that the BNP party, which has four representatives on Burnley council, has still not offered to pay for cleaning up the fly-posting. But BNP chiefs said there was no evidence the posters or promotional material was connected with official party sources.

Coun Birtwistle made his accusation shortly after the BNP made budget submissions at the full council meeting. He said: “I am surprised that the BNP have come into this chamber to present a budget, particularly anything to do with spending on Street Scene.”

Street Scene is the council’s initiative to tackle issues such as fly tipping, graffiti, dog fouling, littering and fly posting.

Coun Birtwistle said: “The BNP have not paid a bill of £600 for fly-posting at the last election. They have waited for council tax payers to pick up the bill. Which is why I am not interested in anything they have to say here tonight.”

But later Coun Sharon Wilkinson, BNP leader in Burnley, said: “There is no evidence of us fly-posting. They are trying to say that someone from the BNP put up these posters but they are just guessing. If they had any evidence by now then they would have prosecuted us. But I have said to (council chief executive and returning officer) Steve Rumbelow you do not have anything to prove it was us. Obviously someone has put these posters up but they were freely available on a website at the time.”

A Burnley council spokesman confirmed that a request had been made to the BNP for an £810 contribution to cleaning up the posters and stickers, following the election.

Burnley Citizen

'BNP' vandals embark on spree of wreckage

Police are investigating after vandals smashed windows and daubed walls and road signs with racist graffiti.

Offensive messages claiming to support the British National Party were painted on the outside wall of the home of Howard and Barbara Oakes in Newcastle Street in Burslem. Two days later, while they were away on holiday, someone tried to smash their front window before scrawling racist messages on the glass.

The couple returned to find the windows of a neighbouring shop, Kwik Communications, had been broken and more graffiti had been painted on road signs at Trubshaw Cross roundabout.

Stoke-on-Trent's BNP group has condemned those responsible and urged the culprits to stop carrying out vandalism in the party's name.

Mrs Oakes, aged 56, said: "Last Wednesday my husband went out to work at 6.30am and saw the graffiti on the wall. We tried to clean it off but we couldn't, so we painted over it. I haven't been well so we went away for a few days and on Friday my friend called to say someone had tried to put our window through and there was more graffiti on the window."

On Monday, when Mrs Oakes had returned home, she reported the incident to the police and Stoke-on-Trent City Council. She also contacted the city council's BNP group to tell them what had happened, and they were quick to condemn those responsible.

Group leader councillor Alby Walker said he hoped the vandals were brought to justice.

"This is nothing to do with the BNP, it's just idiots latching on to our name and I would urge them to stop," he said. "No bona fide member of the BNP would contemplate this behaviour. I hope the police catch whoever is responsible and throw the book at them."

Owner of Kwik Communications, Ishfaq Shar, aged 50, said: "I came in to work and found the windows smashed – it was upsetting to arrive and have that damage. I saw the graffiti, it was very bad."

Mr and Mrs Oakes moved into their property 20 years ago, when it was a fish and chip shop. They closed the shop in 2000 due to a downturn in business, but continued to live there.

Mrs Oakes said: "I don't know why they have done this to our house, I think we might've got caught up in something by mistake. We've been here for 20 years and I've never seen anything like this before. I hope it's just a one-off. I believe people should live and let live – we were all put on this earth for a reason and we should be able to live together."

Following the incident, council workers boarded up the damaged windows and are in the process of removing the last of the graffiti.

Councillor Mohammed Pervez, city council portfolio holder for community engagement and equalities, said: "We condemn any type of racist graffiti in the city and we always work closely with the police and our neighbourhood management teams to ensure anything like this is removed quickly. The council continues to remain vigilant against activities of this kind and would encourage anyone who sees any examples of this to contact the police or ourselves as quickly as possible."

Staffordshire Police have confirmed they are investigating the vandalism. Inspector Martin Brereton said: "We are treating this incident as a hate crime. We do not accept this kind of behaviour in the city. Anyone with information on the graffiti or criminal damage is asked to contact Staffordshire Police."

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the police on 0300 123 4455.

The Sentinel

Ban on BNP's graffiti clean

A councillor says he is furious after being warned by council bosses not to clear graffiti.

Cllr Richard Barnbrook, leader of the BNP party on Barking and Dagenham Council, said he could not believe his ears after being told his actions "contravened the constitution". He said he received a call from an executive officer on Friday telling him that what he was doing could be seen as a conflict of interests.

However, this week Barking and Dagenham Council, which said an investigation had been launched, defended its policy on how graffiti should be reported and cleaned. Cllr Barnbook said he had been cleaning graffiti from a wall in Parsloes Park, Parsloes Avenue, Dagenham, with party activists on February 1.

He said: "I can't see how it could be a conflict of interests. We have been removing graffiti in my ward every month or two since 2004. I couldn't give a damn what the constitution says. If we are under funded and if we get complaints, we will act. I'm furious."

A council spokesman said councillors and members of the public in general, could not clean graffiti from a public area and should instead contact the council's graffiti team.

Cllr Barnbrook said: "I will inform the council of my plans, but I don't always have the leisure to inform it. If residents ask us to remove graffiti and the council haven't got the funding or resources to do this, we will do it."

A council spokesman said: "The reason the council asks residents not to remove graffiti themselves from council-owned buildings or public spaces, is because it makes it difficult for us to monitor the tags and to provide evidence for the police to help prosecute offenders. There are also health and safety reasons.

"As a direct response to residents' concerns about graffiti, the council has expanded its graffiti service and there are now three teams dedicated to removing graffiti from the borough. The graffiti team works with the council's street wardens to tackle hotspots in and around the borough.

Barking and Dagenham Recorder

Nazi attack on Scottish war graves

Vandals have painted swastikas and Nazi symbols over graves of Scottish soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme.

French police are hunting the vandals who attacked the graves of 32 soldiers killed during the First World War in the battle for Contalmaison. The incident has resulted in thousands of pounds' of damage in an attack described by a Scottish historian as an "appalling desecration" days before Remembrance Sunday.

Peake Wood Cemetery, near the village of Contalmaison, records 103 fallen Allied soldiers and is one of many small plots scattered across battlefields, each with their distinctive white headstones administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGS). The cemetery marks the spot from which the final assault was made on Contalmaison on 1 July, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the scene of much heavy fighting by Scottish battalions.

The site is yards from a memorial to McCrae's Battalion, the celebrated Edinburgh unit formed with a large number of professional footballers, many from Heart of Midlothian FC.

Captain Lionel Coles, the Watsonian commander of the footballers' company, 16th Battalion the Royal Scots, was killed on the edge of the cemetery. Jack Alexander, who wrote the history of the battalion and who serves on the committee of the charitable trust that cares for the memorial that was erected in 2004, said he was disgusted by the vandalism. "As we move towards Remembrance Sunday, this appalling desecration is not the kind of thing we expect to see," he said.

The CWGC was notified of the attack last week and immediately arranged for the graffiti to be removed. Peter Francis, a spokesman, said: "It took a whole day. We were shocked and very, very angry."

Jacky Tonnel, the mayor of Fricourt district, which includes the cemetery, said: "I am outraged. Nothing like this has ever happened in Fricourt before and I can't understand it. I don't know if it was some kind of stupid game, whether it was adults or youths who did this, but one thing is for sure: it is scandalous and unacceptable."

Sir George McCrae raised his battalion of troops in less than a fortnight, thanks largely to the keenness with which many Hearts players enlisted. The club was top of the league when war broke out in 1914 and its players were renowned as some of the best footballers anywhere. But just four years later, there was barely a player left who had survived unscathed.

Contalmaison, just outside the town of Albert, was reached by McCrae's force in July 1916.

Scotsman

In wake of botched terror plot, Scottish Muslims fear retaliation

In the row of shops, a Pakistani immigrant owns the only one that was targeted. Shafiq Ahmed says vandals rammed a car into his "One Stop Shop" and set it on fire — an assault disturbingly reminiscent of the terror attack just days earlier on the airport of this gritty but until now racially well-integrated Scottish city.

Police say there has been a backlash against Glasgow's Muslims in the wake of the attempted airport bombing, with at least 24 attacks, ranging from graffiti on a mosque to firebombings of businesses.

Soaping off soot with his family in his charred convenience store, Ahmed is hoping that the attack on his family business wasn't racially motivated. After 30 peaceful years in Scotland, the idea that some may no longer welcome him and his Scottish-born children is simply too uncomfortable.

"I haven't got words to describe it. I'm hoping it's not retaliation," Ahmed said Sunday, in a thick Glasgow accent. "It's a shame to think you can't work with people and enjoy the company of people and instead have to worry."

British police are still threading together the terror plot investigation, reaching out to India, Australia, Jordan, Iraq and to communities here in Scotland where Muslims and non-Muslims have long lived in peace together — and where the majority are determined to keep it that way.

Unlike in Muslim enclaves in northern England, Asian Muslims in Glasgow do not live in complete isolation. White customers are common in the curry restaurants and ethnic grocery stores. Glaswegians wearing the colors of the local soccer team — Glasgow Rangers — share the sidewalks with Muslim community elders clad in long tunics and matching baggy trousers traditionally worn in Pakistan.

In the former industrial towns of northern England where much of Britain's Asian diaspora is settled, the far right British National Party with its fiercely anti-Muslim rhetoric has made inroads. But in Glasgow — Scotland's most populous Muslim city — the BNP has hardly any presence despite repeated efforts to foment racial division.

Problems of unemployment, poverty, and alcohol and drug abuse are shared by the community, not divided along racial lines.

Two Muslims allegedly rammed a Jeep Cherokee packed with gas cylinders and gasoline into the terminal building of Glasgow's airport on June 30. Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq, was charged on Friday. Kafeel Ahmed, from Bangalore, India, was believed to be driving the jeep. Hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns, he has not been charged. Six others remain held in custody over that plot and a failed car bomb attack 24 hours earlier in London's theater district.

In Glasgow, some Muslims fear that they will now face the same unwelcome scrutiny, even alienation and violence, that others across the border in England have complained of since four British-born Muslims blew themselves up on trains and a bus in London on July 7, 2005, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700.

Senior officials have since urged Muslims to better integrate. Jack Straw, the justice secretary and lord chancellor in the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, spoke out in October against the head-to-toe black veils worn by some Muslim women.

"After 7/7 it was not that bad for Muslims here," said Imran Ali, a 22-year-old in Pollokshields, the most populous Muslim district of Glasgow. "It's going to be worse now."

John Neilson, one of Glasgow's most senior police officers, told The Associated Press that they have made 25 arrests in the 24 attacks they suspect were revenge for the airport assault. But he also pointed out that for every attack, there were hundreds more expressions of support for Scotland's 60,000 Muslims.

"We showed resilience that some other nations don't have the capacity to show," Neilson said.

Ahmed's store is on a row of shops that includes a Chinese take-out restaurant, a betting shop, a kebab restaurant, a bank, a post office and a pub, The Princess. Plywood boards now cover part of the front of his store, that still gives off a strong burnt smell.

Robert Wishart, who lives opposite, said he was woken by a loud bang in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and saw from his bedroom window that a silver car had smashed into the shop front. It was set on fire five minutes later by a man who arrived in another car with an accomplice. They then sped off. Police say they are investigating.

"He's always been a friendly guy," Wishart said of Ahmed. "We all get on."

Like in Muslim communities across the length of Britain, there is seething resentment in Glasgow at the British government's foreign policy. The Iraq war, the alliance with the United States and a perception of one-sidedness in the Israel-Palestine conflict all fuel hostility. But terrorism in the name of Islam is abhorred in equal measure.

Unlike in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States or the 2005 bombings in London, where some young British Muslims saluted the terrorists, the latest terror plot drew nothing but condemnation here.

"We are not going to tolerate any racists or terrorists coming in and dividing us," said 23-year-old youth worker Javed Aslam.

Pointing to other young Muslims gathered around him, Aslam added: "If one of these guys supported any terrorism, we would all let them him know that we were ashamed."

Several hundred people — from Muslims to Quakers, teenagers to trade unionists — rallied in central Glasgow's George Square on Saturday to denounce the attacks. Blue and white Scottish flags fluttered symbolically alongside banners that declared "Terrorism has no Religion".

"We want to send the message that this country is united," said organizer Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain. "It won't be shaken by terrorism."

International Herald Tribune

Sick yobs daub Nazi slogans on D Day veteran's house

War hero Arnold Holland was devastated after yobs daubed his home with swastikas and the words 'Nazi'.

Arnold, 85, a torpedo man with the Royal Navy throughout World War Two, survived but saw friends die as he protected vital convoys for the war effort. And yesterday he said : "I wonder now if it was all worth it. To have swastikas and 'Nazi' painted on my home is the final insult to someone who fought against Hitler and all he stood for. The ignorant idiots who did are even so ill-educated they don't even know which way the swastika emblem goes they painted it on the wrong way round." The graffiti is the latest attack on the home where Arnold lives with Annie, 84, his wife of 64 years who was born in the house in Normanton Springs, Sheffield.

And so far police have been unable to trace the vandals despite a series of incidents including: bitumen daubed on windows, breeze blocks hurled through windows, false adverts being placed saying the house is for sale.

But with angina, arthritis, only one lung and extremely severe digestion problems frail Arnold feels he can't bear to begin the latest clean-up operation.

He said: "We just don't know where to turn any more. We are in our eighties we shouldn't have to live like this, It's terrible and it's making us ill. I don't know why we are being picked on. We've lived here since we were married and until the last few years there was never any problem. But we can't put up with this all the time. We're really at the end of our tether. These people are just cowards who come in the night and do the damage. I don't know what they are trying to achieve."

Added Annie: "We rely on the law but it doesn't seem to get any better. We are just so fed up and now the swastikas are there for everybody to see."

Inspector Colin Mcfarlane of South Yorkshire Police said: "This is a serious matter and we are currently pursuing all possible lines of enquiry to identify the persons responsible. We are urging anyone who knows who is responsible to come forward."

Daily Mail

Vandals paint pony with Nazi signs

Yobs who daubed swastikas over a miniature Shetland pony were today condemned by the animal's distraught owners.

Julie and Ken Bassett were horrified to find vandals had drawn Nazi symbols on the forehead and side of two-year-old Lucy. The tiny pony, who stands less than 34 inches tall, had to be scrubbed and have her forehead shaved to remove the graffiti.

The Bassetts keep Lucy, along with 18 other ponies, in fields off Bluebell Road, near the University of East Anglia. The couple take in unwanted or mistreated Shetland ponies, paying for their keep out of their own pockets.

Mrs Bassett, 41, of Parr Road, said: “I'm absolutely disgusted, particularly because of the sign they have put on her. Lucy has got deformed legs and wouldn't have been able to run away like any of the other ponies would have done. She's the sweetest little pony and so trusting. So many people love to come down and see the ponies and for somebody to be so cruel to poor Lucy is unfair.”

The crime happened between the evening of Wednesday, April 18, and 6.30pm the following day.

The Bassetts gave Lucy a home as a foal two years ago, when her previous owners realised she was deformed. She would have been destroyed otherwise.

Mrs Bassett said: “We finally got it off but we had to shave her little forehead. Luckily she's losing her winter coat so it wasn't too bad to get out. We don't know what it was, either spray paint or a thick black felt tip pen.”

The couple have made a home for Shetland ponies from all over the country, from private owners or from the RSPCA. The first pony they took on was Jasper, who Mrs Bassett spotted tethered without food or water in a field while out walking her dog six years ago. He belonged to travellers and she offered to buy him because she felt so sorry for him.

Sophie Wilkinson, of the RSPCA, said: “People can make their statements, but there is no reason why they should be using a living animal to write anything on. It's going to cause a huge amount of distress to a pony to have anything written on it.”

Norwich Evening News