Vandalism

Vandalism, litter and graffiti

One of the most shameful of our current social crimes is vandalism because it has no motive and there is no gain for the perpetrators. Those who are responsible for the wilful damage of personal or public property are often unable to give an explanation as to why they target a particular building or edifice other than that it happens to be there when they are in a destructive mood and often fired by strong drink. The morose and sullen reply by the guilty when asked to clarify their conduct is usually an inane retort that reflects their mindless stupidity because even they have little idea why they should roam the locality wrecking everything in sight although remorse for their actions is invariably sadly lacking.

The Vandals of history were a Teutonic people related to the Goths and in the 5th century they moved from North Germany to invade Roman Gaul and Spain, and after much bloodshed many settled in Andalusia and others reaching North Africa. They occupied Rome in the year 455 AD and plundered the city, despoiling it of its treasures of art and literature, but a century later accepted Roman suzerainty and thus ended the history of this independent tribe. The name has since been used for those who wilfully or ignorantly indulge in the destruction of works of art and is now applied to most forms of wanton damage.

The causing of malicious damage during civil demonstrations against government and state has frequently been justified as the means for the cause and that is arguable but the indiscriminate destruction of property for no apparent reason is inexcusable and this is at the heart of the matter.

Bourne has much the same problem with vandalism as most other towns and cities in Britain but being of modest size, serious cases of criminal damage are more noticeable and receive greater publicity. In 1977 for instance, widespread damage was caused to the Wellhead Gardens and the Abbey Lawn and the Lincolnshire Free Press reported on Tuesday 8th March:

Seats have been damaged, flags removed, flowers uprooted and land flooded as a result of vandalism in and around the Wellhead field at Bourne. Now Bourne United Charities, owners of the field, are offering a reward for information leading to conviction of the culprits. “There is the greater concern among the trustees about the constant damage being done to their property”, says Canon Gordon Lanham, their chairman. “The damage is costing money that could well be used in other directions to benefit the people of Bourne.” Recent acts of senselessness include removal of flags from the War Memorial, uprooting newly planted flowers on the beds of the Memorial Gardens, removal of seats on the Wellhead field which have been thrown into the pool and across a fence surrounding a greenhouse. Seats on the field and at the Abbey Lawn have been damaged and when vandals interfered with an overflow pipe and the drainage system of the Wellhead field, adjoining ground was seriously flooded. Mr Douglas Reeson, clerk to the trustees, has pointed out that with a limited income, the trustees have been using money for unnecessary repair work which would otherwise have been used for carrying out further improvements for the benefit of the people of Bourne.

In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to burn down the pavilion headquarters of the Bourne Town Football Club on the Abbey Lawn while the pitch at the adjoining Bourne Cricket Club has been damaged on several occasions. Smashed windows occur in the town most weekends and new graffiti appears on walls and hoardings almost daily.


The old wooden street signs mounted on posts were an easy target for vandals (above) and so South Kesteven District Council began using galvanised replacements concreted into the ground but these seemed to provide a challenge for the culprits because they were also attacked and with some force (right).

In March 2001, vandals systematically attacked road signs around the town, mainly in the North Road area where half a dozen were wrecked over one weekend. Over the Bank Holiday weekend in August 2002, the telephone kiosk in North Road was wrecked by vandals using an estate agent's sign that had been uprooted from a nearby front garden as a battering ram. The town centre was littered with rubbish and broken glass with West Street being particularly affected on Sunday and Monday mornings, the pavements and gutters filled with the debris from a weekend's holiday and not a street cleaner in sight. It looked as though a loaded dustcart had driven through in a gale force wind, scattering litter as it went.

Photographed in 2002

In September 2002, one of the council rubbish bins in Queen's Road was reduced to a pile of mangled metal, a feat that must have taken some combined strength. There was also more vandalism at the junction of Queen's Road with Harrington Street, a favourite spot for many people to sit down on the public bench which had been systematically wrecked, leaving only one section of wooden slats and the metal upright. The following month, the telephone kiosk in North Road was wrecked for a second time together with another round the corner in Northfields.

Public toilets also have an attraction for vandals and a small block of conveniences for both ladies and gents on the edge of the playing fields in Recreation Road was closed down in 1998 because of continuing criminal damage. Basins were regularly ripped from the walls, the lavatories broken and young couples were often found there having sex. The building has since been leased to Bourne Town Junior Football Club for storage purposes at a peppercorn rent of £1 a week.

Photographed in 2002

The public toilets in South Street were also closed by South Kesteven District Council in October 2002 because of vandalism, although later re-opened after public protest, while a third block of conveniences at the town's bus station were also badly damaged within days of them being renovated and has now been closed down permanently.

Few people in Bourne think very much about vandalism unless it happens to them and, as with other towns and cities throughout Britain, because much of it is directed towards the town centre. If their own garden fence were torn down, hanging baskets proudly displayed at the front of the house thrown into the road, the paintwork of cars standing in the driveway defaced with sharp metal objects, windows smashed and graffiti spray-painted over the brickwork, then they would demand action, firstly from the police who would not respond because vandalism is a low priority, and then from their Neighbourhood Watch group, if there was one, who would be powerless anyway.

Anti-social behaviour causes pain, discomfort and damage to other people and their property and the following contribution was submitted to the Bourne Internet web site in June 2002. The author was anonymous but gave a heartfelt and graphic description of life in an area of Bourne where vandalism was allowed to reign unchecked:

VANDALISM - A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

If vandalism is being perpetrated and those responsible are not being caught and prosecuted, then it must be out of control. Causing criminal damage is not the problem of elsewhere. It is our problem too. The only level to be happy with is where it is not taking place at all. Gangs of youths roaming free of supervision at the Abbey Lawns or wherever are well placed to cause trouble. The vandalism there has been a regular feature for each of the past seven or eight summers and yet as far as I know no one has been brought to account.

Those who suggest that victims of vandalism who become exasperated are being negative are either not property owners or have had little or no trouble from this practice. They also sound remarkably like some in our criminal justice system who have decided on our behalf that criminal damage is a minor offence - a crime that the victims of which should easily be able to cope with. In the 17 years that I lived in one Bourne property we only had one egg thrown at a living room window. Then I moved to another Bourne location in the early 1990s where it was hell. Youths would congregate next to my home for most hours of each and every day April - September and I suffered about 50 acts of vandalism and theft each of the 1993 to 1995 summers. They uprooted plants, kicked in fence panels, stole fish from my pond, hack sawed through chain locks on my side gate, banged on my dining room window and front door, threw stones, mud and water bombs at the front and back of my house. They climbed my trees and broke branches off them and threw them onto my dining room roof. They also threw lighted paper into my back garden and attempted to set fire to my more established shrubs at the front. Trespass was a daily problem.

Initially I tapped on my window to tell them to get off my property. Although I then managed to befriend some of them, the trouble continued. So I ended up talking to some to their parents who I found to be even more disagreeable than their offspring. The police said that there was little that they could do. Other property owners suffered similarly - especially when the kids obtained catapults to continue firing projectiles that included golf balls. I'd go out and not be too sure what state my property would be in when I returned. Or when I was at home and could hear them outside I'd be waiting for something to happen. It would have been interesting to see how others would have reacted in my situation.

You are more or less on your own - they knew that they could do more or less what they wanted and the police would do nothing. And yet despite the summers of misery, I only had to touch one of them - cause them the slightest of bruising and police and parents would have been round in a flash and it would have been me in trouble because I was supposed to be able to accept having my home vandalised. This is what happened to a neighbour across the way. One of the youths picked up a rock and ran it along the side of his car and then started throwing lumps of concrete through his open kitchen door. He got hold of the youth by the collar and brought him to his enraged face. That is all he did and yet the youth's parents reported him, the police became involved and he was bound over to keep the peace for six months.

A change in my neighbourhood's environment caused the troubles to disappear in 1996 and since then I'd not want to live anywhere else. It was the regularity of the troubles rather than their extent that was the problem for me. In fact it was almost surprising that no windows were broken and no attempt was made to break into my house. I'm not sure that if they had whether the police would then have acted. The youths who attracted their friends to the area have moved out and been replaced by families with some absolutely terrific kids. The sort who knock on my door, yes, but only to ask if they can get their ball back. A different world - the whole neighbourhood is better for the people that now live in it.

It's highly interesting to note that three of the five or six culprits have since appeared several times in the magistrate's court. One for breaking into a pub at Stamford and more recently for drink driving, another for assault, and another for possession of drugs. My neighbourhood's problems never reached the local papers so you cannot rely solely on the media to inform you fully of what is going on. It also highlights why I can understand those who did not and don't wish to see skateboard parks built close to their homes. If I was a town planner it would not be just industry that I would section off from residential areas but also facilities for youths. Even in London youths complain about a lack of facilities. It just amazes me that crime, particularly youth crime, is not always at the top of the political agenda. Transport will eventually get you to work, the NHS will eventually provide you treatment, and most children receive a good education. But our criminal justice system provides little deterrent or rehabilitation for those criminally inclined. Nobody, anywhere it seems, has a clue on how to alter somebody's behaviour to make him or her a better citizen.

Vandalism is not new. It has always been with us but the problem has been aggravated in recent years because the culprits are less likely to be caught and punished, mainly because the police take little interest and rarely even turn out to investigate. The threat of prosecution, an appearance before the courts and a suitable punishment, would lead to a subsequent stigmatisation by family and society that would work wonders in focussing the minds of those contemplating smashing up public or private property just for the fun of it.

Litter is also a continuing problem in Bourne and a survey by the Keep Britain Tidy campaign in October 2002 decided that we were still a nation of litterbugs. The results indicated that 25 million tonnes of rubbish were dropped in the streets and other public places of Britain every year, making the country look a mess and costing a fortune to clear up. Changes in the way we live seem to be exacerbating the problem because more packaged food is eaten in the street, more people chew gum and the majority have lost the habit of using a bin. Poor planning of cleaning and refuse collections are making the problem worse and street sweeping fails to collect all of the dust and soil in the gutters and so allows weeds to grow. The proliferation of fast food shops in Bourne has proved to be a particular source of street rubbish.


*Litter at the town end of Wherry's Lane, photographed in February 2003 (left) and in the town centre (right), almost outside the Town Hall, in April 2003.*

But headway is being made in some places although it is doubtful if we will ever be as clean as Singapore for instance, where anyone who drops litter faces a £1,000 fine plus community service, or Dubai, where the streets are among the world's cleanest.

The Keep Britain Tidy survey was carried out at 11,000 sites across 54 boroughs in England and Bourne was included in the East Midlands region which was assessed as follows:

Obstructions on pavements were causing problems and were rated poor. Councils here were good at cleaning toilets and removing fly posting, graffiti and leaves. The region looked after lamp-posts better than anyone else - getting them a satisfactory grade. They were also okay on cleaning the pavements outside public lavatories and removing weeds. But everything from clearing up litter to looking after bins was graded unsatisfactory.

Photographed in September 2002

Vandalism is usually caused by youths fuelled by strong ale after a Saturday night out in the town centre public houses and while on their way home in 2002, this telephone kiosk in North Road offered an inviting target with a traffic cone from nearby road works as a weapon.

The bus shelter opposite the old peoples' homes in Manning Road
after it was vandalised in March 2003.

This public seat in North Road was ripped out of its concrete moorings and wrecked by vandals in June 2004 during a spate of criminal damage over various weekends involving street signs, trees and telephone boxes.

Individual towns were not named in the survey but a simple check will show the problem here in Bourne. Fast food wrappers, cartons and tins are everywhere while pizza packets have become a favourite throwaway in recent months and a walk around the streets on a Sunday morning will reveal at least half a dozen that have been chucked away the night before. Dog fouling and broken glass are also a problem and weeds in the street are not unknown to us either. At the time the survey was published, there were many examples in Bourne itself, around the traffic lights and the paved area outside the Burghley Arms and the Town Hall as well as many other places in the town centre, especially along West Street.

Vandalism and litter in public places demeans the entire town for it is seen by visitors who judge us accordingly. There are those who will say that they occur in all communities but that is not an acceptable excuse because many are striving to overcome it with some success. We too should try to improve our habits but merely accepting the status quo means no improvement to our environment which will sink further into the abyss of urban deprivation that can be found in our worst inner cities. Not only does our quality of life suffer but also our local economy because no one likes to shop in a town where such anti-social behaviour is so manifestly obvious.

TREE VANDALISM IN NORTH ROAD

Trees are another favourite target, especially along the grass verges in North Road where saplings are planted by the town's Rotary Club of Bourne as a contribution to the environment. They are frequently snapped off at the base or branches ripped off and left lying in the road. The trees above, mountain ash saplings each about six feet tall, were planted in the spring of 2003, a most attractive improvement to this thoroughfare which is also the main A15 trunk road and therefore the most frequently seen by people passing through. The trees, just coming into blossom, gave this part of town a most pleasing aspect and were a delight to see. On Saturday night, May 3rd, vandals moved in and destroyed three of the saplings, breaking two of the stems completely while a third was wrenched from its support. Earlier, a fourth had been uprooted together with its securing post and dumped some distance away at the end of Mill Drove. The final 24 trees planted by Rotarians as part of this project had been put in place by members only a few days before and residents living in the vicinity offered refreshments to the men as they worked as a gesture of appreciation. This was the thanks they got from drunken louts rolling home full of lager-fuelled bravado and intent on destroying anything in sight. The volunteers who put in so much time and effort to improve our town deserve better.

In July 2006, vandals continued to target North Road on their drunken way home after a Saturday night out and ten of the new saplings planted on the grass verge earlier in the year by the rotarians were snapped in two. This incident was not only an insult to the town but also to the memory of Rotarian John Bentley who had been co-ordinating the work for several years but died suddenly in January 2006 at the age of 76. Eighteen young rowans were about to be planted at a cost of £400 but fellow members and his family agreed that the work should go ahead because he was determined not to give in to such setbacks. The vandalism on this occasion was therefore doubly reprehensible.

Photographed in 2004

There was a similar trail of damage left along North Road shortly before Christmas 2004. On the night of Saturday 18th December, ten trees along the grass verge were destroyed, estate agents' signs smashed, a wire security fence around a housing development site alongside Mill House torn down, an electricity cable marker toppled and, in one of the most wanton acts so far, a Royal Mail box uprooted. The damage to the trees was becoming a regular occurrence and the wrecking of the mail box at the top of Stephenson Way was particularly regrettable because it was put there to serve the community and was particularly necessary at that time of the year when the volume of mail is much heavier than usual. There were more demands from the community for a police presence at this vulnerable spot, especially at weekends, but nothing was done.


An old mattress dumped in the Wellhead Field in April 2003 and a shopping trolley from one of the town's supermarkets thrown into St Peter's Pool in May 2003.

DAMAGE AT THE WELLHEAD GARDENS

In September 2005, vandals turned their attention to the Wellhead Gardens where an ornamental cherry tree was uprooted during the night with empty lager cans left in the vicinity, a sign that the culprits had been drinking. Elsewhere in the park, trees were damaged as foliage and branches were ripped off, especially some of the older chestnuts. In May 2008, intruders turned their attention to the War Memorial which is a permanent reminder of those from this town who gave their lives in successive wars and poppy wreaths from each Remembrance Sunday service in November remain at the base throughout the year. Vandals grabbed them late on a Saturday night and tossed them into the Bourne Eau (below) but next morning they were retrieved by workers at the Heritage Centre and replaced in their rightful position.

RAYMOND MAYS MEMORIAL PLAQUE DEFACED

One of the most emotive acts of vandalism occurred in January 2007 when the metal plaque commemorating the life of one of our most prominent citizens, the international racing driver and BRM designer Raymond Mays (1899-1980), erected on the wall outside the house in Eastgate where he was born, was daubed with spray paint. Jim Jones, a committee member of the Civic Society, removed and restored it, a task that took many hours of painstaking work, and it was eventually put back in position on Friday 9th March 2007.

FLOWER VANDALISM IN SOUTH STREET
Work by a dedicated team of volunteers was destroyed during Friday night, 17th August 2007, when troughs and baskets of flowers that had been positioned on the iron railings alongside the Bourne Eau in South Street were upturned and dozens of colourful geraniums and soil scattered along the pavement and into the gutter, a sorry sight indeed come daylight. The flowers had been installed to enhance the street scene as a joint project between the town council and Bourne United Charities at the suggestion of Councillor Shirley Cliffe who was inspired by a visit to Lincoln where she was impressed by a similar feature and she was dismayed by what happened. “We have had many letters saying how good they looked and it cheered people up to see them”, she said. “It is a pity that those responsible had to lower themselves to do this sort of thing and it is very surprising that they had not got something better to do with their time.”
Fortunately, help was at hand when the damage was discovered on Saturday morning and members of the Civic Society, whose headquarters are based at the Heritage Centre in Baldock’s Mill nearby, cleared up the mess and replanted the flowers. The incident and its consequences were a reminder of how much this town depends on volunteers who work tirelessly to improve the environment and make life better for those who live here and the culprits responsible for the damage, committed no doubt as an act of drunken bravado while rolling home from the pub late at night, should hide their heads in shame.

YOUNG FOOTBALLERS' EQUIPMENT SET ON FIRE
An arson attack was carried out during the early hours of Thursday 22nd May 2008 on a storage building in the town's recreation ground containing soccer equipment belonging to Bourne Town Juniors, one of our most active youth organisations and one that provides a basic grounding for boys and girls in the nation’s most popular sport. The blaze broke out around 4 am with flames and plumes of thick black smoke pouring from the roof and an hour later the building was gutted. The valuable equipment inside was reduced to ashes and police investigating the fire say that it appears to have been started deliberately.
The club, which is run entirely by volunteers, caters for more than 260 children in 20 teams and as the equipment was needed for a regional tournament due to be held that weekend, officials spent the next few hours desperately trying to find replacements to ensure that the event could go ahead as planned. The damage also left them with another round of fund-raising to make up the losses worth more than £2,500, including six new goalposts bought the previous year after David Dodds, manager of the under-eights, raised the money to buy them from sponsors by running in the London marathon.

SPOOF GRAFFITI GO-AHEAD IN CHURCH WALK
One of the few blank public hoardings in Bourne that had not been defaced by graffiti could be found in Church Walk in August 2008 where a dozen or so sections of chipboard had been erected to screen the site of the corn mill flats development.
Hardly a single mark could be found on these pristine surfaces yet they invited the attentions of the yobs with spray cans and felt pens to do their worst but appeared to have gone unnoticed. Perhaps our urban artists thought that it was not actually illegal to scribble or draw there because a notice purporting to emanate from South Kesteven District Council stencilled on one of them announced that the wall was a designated graffiti area and so many presumed that it invited attention with the blessing of the developers and the local authority. The sign, however, appears to have been an elaborate spoof, a variation of others that have appeared elsewhere in the country, usually claiming to be issued by the National Environment Agency although this one had been amended to read that it originated from the district council. Not therefore, a case of if you can’t beat ‘em join ’em, although artistic endeavour was so far absent, even from those who thought they may be officially empowered to have a doodle. But there is still time because the current slump in the housing market has resulted in a halt to building work on the site and as it is unlikely to resume until the middle of 2009, we can expect this blank canvas to be filled with some creative examples from those with an irresistible urge to cover every inviting surface in the street scene with colourful if uneducated artwork.

Photograph from June 2012 courtesy Jim Jones

On Saturday 16th June 2012, vandals ripped the safety barriers from around road works in Meadowgate and deposited one of them on top of a post box in nearby Meadow Close. Late night drinkers returning home from the town were blamed for the incident.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Last Saturday night, some malicious scoundrels got into Mr Falkner's garden in the Eastgate and broke the window and door in the garden house. They pulled up some fruit trees and took the gate off its hinges, they then burst the whole. Mr Falkner is a very respectable man and has done nothing to deserve such treatment. - news report from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 27th March 1848.

At the Petty Sessions at Bourne Town Hall on Thursday, George Baxter, of Swayfield, a boy of 16, was committed for trial at Lincoln Assizes for throwing a potato at a passing engine on the Great Northern Railway. The fireman, who narrowly escaped being struck, described as disgraceful the treatment they received in stones and missiles thrown. - news report from the Lincolnshire Echo, Friday 26th November 1897.

REVISED DECEMBER 2012