A TEENAGER from Northwood Hills has been jailed for being part of a gang of graffiti vandals responsible for almost £60,000 worth of damage on the Tube.
Elistar Filardi, 19, of Pinner Road, was one of four men, together with two youths, who targeted the Metropolitan line from Rickmansworth, Watford and Uxbridge down to North Harrow.
A police investigation began after two of the gang, Jake Browne, 18, of Somerford Close, Pinner, and a 17-year-old also from Pinner, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were arrested near a depot in Rickmansworth for spraying graffiti in the early hours of February 8 last year.
The group collectively admitted more than 40 offences between April 2008 and June last year and were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Friday (July 9).
The court heard that the group used bolt cutters to trespass on railway property while spray cans, acid and paint were used to daub individual 'tags'.
Videos and pictures of their handiwork were posted on the internet.
Many scrawled the acronym FTS, short for F**k the System, in what defence lawyers described as a response to the teenagers' feelings of disillusionment and boredom.
Filardi and Browne, together with Richard Borgonon, 18, of Cannon Lane, Pinner, and Tim Harwood, 18, of Hampstead, were each sentenced to nine months imprisonment.
The 17-year-old was handed an eight month detention and training order, while a 16-year-old from South Oxhey was given a two-year supervision order.
All six were each given a three-year Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo) banning them from entering private railway property or carrying graffiti-related materials in public.
Sentencing, Justice John Price said: "This is an epidemic we see all over London, causing enormous costs.
"There has to be a deterrent sentence in the sense that, if everyone walked free from this court with all the damage that has been caused, it would be a laughing stock of the justice system."
British Transport Police officer, Saeid Rasool, added: "This group was intent on causing criminal damage and went to great lengths to plan their attacks on the London Underground network.
"These young men are now in jail because of their irresponsible, dangerous and costly behaviour."
