Graffiti vandal who blighted Brent jailed for a year

A GRAFFITI vandal who daubed a plethora of businesses, canals and train stations and has been described as one of the Tube's most prolific offenders, has been jailed for a year.

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Ian Proctor

15:15, 4 JUL 2012
Updated15:13, 27 SEP 2013

A GRAFFITI vandal who daubed a plethora of businesses, canals and train stations and has been described as one of the Tube's most prolific offenders, has been jailed for a year.

Harry Conway spray painted his tag 'ZeRX' on numerous local shops and restaurants close to his home in Liddell Gardens, of Kensal Rise, and was believed to be part of the 'YAM' crew that stood for Young And Mad or You Ain't Much.

He was sentenced on Wednesday at Harrow Crown Court where Judge John Anderson told him: "This is a three year period where you applied graffiti on both public and private properties, damaged London Underground and railway property, British Waterways property - some of them permanently - and caused damaged to commercial and residential property. It was a value of some £70,000.

"To say more about what you have done, and what I have seen in photographs of your work, would be to entrench this course of offending and give it some sort of dignity, of which it is completely devoid, and in reality is nothing more than deliberate, persistent and shabby vandalism.

"It blights society and costs a significant amount of time and money to put right."

The unemployed 22-year-old, both of whose parents are law firm partners and who has completed a foundation art course at Amersham and Wycombe College in Buckinghamshire, admitted on June 6 at Harrow Crown Court 13 counts of causing criminal damage while another three counts he denied were ordered to lie on file.

Mustachioed Conway had been cautioned for criminal damage in 2010 but continued nonetheless, the court was told.

Investigating officer PC John Wedger told the Observer afterwards the 'ZeRX' tag appears hundreds of time across London and Hertfordshire, and as far away as the Stansted Express line, although sometimes replicated by other graffiti vandals as a tribute to the original author.

PC Wedger said: "Conway's sentence was about right. The local community were absolutely fed up.

"The ZeRX tag is rife in Brent. He didn't target his own street but all the streets around.

"He was one of London Underground's most prolific graffiti artists and the £70,000 mentioned was a very conservative estimate.

"The damage to mainline stations and trains was uncosted but British Transport Police estimate that it alone could be around £1million."

Judge Anderson made no orders for costs or compensation and refused to impose on Conway an Anti-Social Behaviour Order that would have prevented him from things like carrying spray paint cans and straying onto canal towpaths.

Kensal Rise-based graphic designer and photographer Paul Davey, who in 2009 wrote a blog post called The Abominable Works Of Zerx And His Friends in which he challenged the police to catch the person responsible, said afterwards: "The cost of the damage is enormous and I think rather than put the guy in prison, he should have one year of having to clean up graffiti, more particularly his own, and now he's been convicted people should pursue him through the civil courts for compensation.