A vandal has been jailed for scrawling graffiti on trains and at stations in London and claiming that he was “creating a job for the person cleaning it.”
Bacari Adams, 33, caused over £130,000 by his vandalism. He admitted being caught red-handed when he was shown footage of him writing his favourite tag on a London Overground train in January 2019 – the same tag was tattooed across his knuckles. This offence was just one of dozens such offences that he had committed.
During an interview with police, Adams said: “Sorry, I'm not going to do it again, I can't deny catching me red-handed, only an idiot would deny that”.
At Inner London Crown Court on Wednesday 13 October, Adams, of Southgate in Enfield, pleaded guilty to conspiring to destroy or damage property and was jailed for six months.
Adams' imprisonment was the cumulation of a long-term investigation into graffiti vandalism on London's railway network which began in 2016. British Transport Police (BTP) officers had invested a significant amount of time investigating accounts of people trespassing onto the railway, sometimes in the dead of night, and scrawling tags on trains and other property.
BTP had built enough evidence against Adams to link him with 77 offences, all committed across the railway in London. A second man, Jake Martin, 31, was also tied to the same offences.
Martin, of Tottenham, was tried at the same time as Adams and pleaded guilty to the same offence. In December 2020 he had previously been found guilty of another offence and was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for 18 months.
Both men were arrested at their homes in December 2018. Their phones provided decisive evidence, including pictures of their vandalism that they had kept as trophies, and text and WhatsApp messages that they sent to each other as they planned more vandalism on trains and railway property.
The damage caused to railway property totalled £133,817.
The officer leading the case, Alom Uddin, said: “This was a long and thorough investigation. We were committed to securing enough evidence to link Adams and Martin to the dozens of crimes committed across the London railway network.
“Graffiti on the railway is inherently dangerous. It often involves trespassing onto the railway lines, which can be charged with electricity, or have trains constantly passing through. It also costs the railway network significant sums of money and disrupts services while carriages are cleaned.
“We're committed to identifying anyone committing these acts on the railway and will invest significant resources and time to ensure they're brought before the courts.”
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