Rising Crime Rates: Here’s A Twofer!

News of the shocking incident spread quickly on social media, with some users naming a teacher at Dulwich Hamlet Junior School as the vandal responsible. The allegations prompted the independent school's head to issue a statement in which she categorically denied the claims, saying the "principled, kind and caring" teacher in question had been in another part of the country when the incident is alleged to have taken place. Sonia Case also suggested images of the graffiti might be "photoshopped".

Hmmm, really? Seems a bit desperate to me, if the person concerned was out of the country (as the police seem to now agree), there’s be no need to cast aspersions, would there?

And indeed, they were not photoshopped:

Southwark Council today confirmed the graffiti was real. Contractors painted over the offensive comment around 9am this morning, a spokeswoman said.

However, as we saw in Longrider’s recent post, the thing to do when you are getting criticised for your actions is to claim that you’re the victim. And so the crime figures get inflated…

Police today confirmed officers were looking into two separate incidents connected the graffiti. "On May 26 police received an allegation of malicious communications following the circulation of a name on social media in relation to racist graffiti in Herne Hill," a spokeswoman said.

"Detectives from the Community Safety Unit based in Southwark carried out enquiries and established that the racist graffiti, which has been reported separately to police, had been written on a wall outside a bar in Herne Hill.

"The CSU has not identified the person or persons responsible for both incidents and enquiries continue."

And I wonder which report will reach the finish line first? The one that needs a lot of ploughing through CCTV and questioning people, or the one that means looking at someone’s Facebook page from the comfort of their desk?

Update: Well, well, well...

Wondering why this man was named at all as the potential graffiti artist?

Well, here's a possible clue:

He said he had no idea who had sprayed the offensive message last Monday morning or why his name was being smeared.

Mr Turnham is among a number of neighbours to have written to the local council asking for the bar’s licence to be reviewed over noise complaints.

Curiouser and curiouser!