The words ‘COVID lies’ have once again been spray painted on walls in Louth, despite a local councillor’s best efforts to scrub away the vandalism on a weekly basis.
Police investigated last year when the graffiti first started appearing on a boundary wall on St Mary’s Lane in the Lincolnshire town.
Town councillor David Ford goes out litter picking and to scrub off graffiti nearly every day. He has recently removed graffiti in several locations in the town including on High Holme Road and St Mary’s Lane.
The words ‘COVID LIES’ were spray painted onto a wall outside Spout Yard Park in Louth. | Photo: Sarah Lingard
He is going out on Wednesday afternoon to remove more recent graffiti from earlier this week, which was spray painted on the wall outside Spout Yard Park. The same words were seen graffitied at the same location in December last year too.
He said East Lindsey District Council has taken action to clean up graffiti if it is on land it owns, while householders have also removed some. Police have also been seen out taking photos to gather evidence of the vandalism.
Photos showing some of the graffiti before and after it was cleaned by David Ford.
David told The Lincolnite: “It is pretty terrible. The first wave of graffiti was in white paint that could be removed. Whoever is doing it is now using stronger black paint that is tougher to remove.
“It is frustrating if you remove it that it will just come back again and that is the problem. The issue is we need to catch who is doing it.
“People are extremely upset and don’t want to be seeing this all over town. The recent spate is way beyond anything that has happened before.
“Last month there were around half a dozen, then two or three nights ago I saw even more and am getting reports from other people too.
“The graffiti is stupid. It’s a conspiracy rabbit hole stopping some people fighting against coronavirus, but we should be united in this battle.
“My wife works in the health service, and in the vaccination centre at the moment, and she can see the impact coronavirus is having on people’s lives.
“I know someone who didn’t have the vaccination due to conspiracy theories they had read who recently died. People spreading these conspiracy theories makes me angry and more motivated to do something about it.”
The graffiti “ruins the look of the area”. | Photo: Sarah Lingard
Louth resident Sarah Lingard said there has also been the same graffiti at the flats along Broadbank, on St Mary’s Lane and on the corner of High Holme Road/Grimsby Road.
Charles Street, Crowtree Lane, Breakneck Lane and other areas have also been previously targeted.
More graffiti on the outside wall at Spout Yard Park in Louth. | Photo: Sarah Lingard
Sarah told The Lincolnite: “It’s such a shame as the park is run by volunteers for the local community.
“It ruins the look of the area. The park is used by many people and not what they want to see on arriving. It takes a lot of effort by volunteers to keep the park looking so lovely.”
The words COVID LIES were spray painted on a wall in Louth. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
No arrests have yet been made in relation to the vandalism.
A spokesperson for Lincolnshire Police said: “Investigations are ongoing. We continue to appeal for any information that may assist with our investigation, and anyone with CCTV.”
Anyone with information should contact police on 101 quoting incident number 191 of March 9.
A spokesperson for East Lindsey District Council said: “It’s disappointing to see lack of respect for Louth’s public spaces and private property.
“Where we are aware that such graffiti has been sprayed onto land we own or look after, we work quickly to remove it.
“Louth Town Council are currently looking into procuring the services of a company to remove graffiti from the wider town, and we have agreed to support them with this through our Vital and Viable programme.”
Meanwhile, David, along with his wife Vanessa Pilny, also set up Litter Free Louth around five years ago.
They used to do weekly pick ups with a team of volunteers. This has been limited due to coronavirus, but David still goes out litter picking nearly every day.
In the past three weeks he has picked up around 40 bags of rubbish in and around the town centre and near the Louth Bypass and the A16 coming into Louth.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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