EU remainer targeted by vandals

A BEANACRE resident says he was left ‘stupefied’ after Melksham Police  were reluctant to report an act of vandalism when someone threw paint over his property and car. 

Pete Creese, who has lived in Beanacre for the last 23 years ‘proudly’ displayed an EU flag on his fence outside his property. However, on the morning of Thursday 30th May, the flag had been ripped and sprayed with paint. The vandal also poured paint over his car. 

Pete said, “I was formerly a Melksham town councillor and I am a proud ‘remain’ supporter.  In the lead up to the recent European elections, I proudly displayed my EU flag on my garden fence.

“Everything was fine, several neighbours commented on how positive remaining would be and liked the flag.  That was until I went to go to work at 6.20am on the morning of May 30th. I found that someone had thrown pink and white paint over my flag.  Not satisfied with just vandalising my flag, they decided to throw the paint over my car as well, something that I found not only extremely annoying, but also quite intimidating.

 “On the afternoon of the 30th May I went to Melksham Police Station to report the criminal damage.  Much to my surprise, the person I dealt with was very reluctant to report the crime commenting, ‘well it will wash off – it’s not permanent damage’, I was stupefied! 

“Whilst I have attempted to clean the paint off, there are residual stains that cannot be removed.  The flag was torn and ruined and my fence is damaged.  Somewhat reluctantly, he eventually recorded the criminal damage, but was advised that the police would not do anything about it as there was no ‘circumstantial evidence’.

PC Lee Pelling, community coordinator for Melksham said, “The crime was picked up by the West CPT Policing Team and is under investigation. An officer has been assigned to make further enquiries. A priority tasking was raised for all West CPT officers to conduct regular high visibility patrols in the area of Beanacre and offer reassurance to the community to deter further incidents of this nature.

“This sort of mindless vandalism is saddening to hear for us and the victim. We would urge anyone with information or CCTV around the time of the incident that may help us with our enquiries to come forwards. Please call us on 101 and quote incident number 54190051914.”