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On the trail of one of Leicester's most prolific taggers

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Officials believe they are on the trail of one of Leicester's most prolific graffiti taggers – thanks to a series of tip-offs.

Four people have passed the same name to Leicester City Council, claiming that person is responsible for the tag "Kase".

The suspect is now being investigated by council officials and police.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows officials to place the suspect – or areas he may target – under covert surveillance.

The calls came in after the city council offered a £500 reward for information leading to the conviction of the people or person behind the design, which has been scrawled on hundreds of buildings, telephone kiosks, postboxes and vehicles in the past few months.

The authority is offering the same inducement for information about the city's other most widespread tag, SO 12.

Currently, no names have been put forward for SO 12.

Assistant mayor Councillor Sarah Russell said the tactic of offering a reward appeared to be working and that the council was considering repeating the offer in exchange for the names of other graffiti vandals.

She said: "The information which people have passed to us will be investigated.

"It looks like we are getting closer to the people who have been doing these tags all over the city.

"If this is successful, we will look at offering rewards for information about other vandals, because there are more of them.

"They are not as prolific as SO 12 and Kase, but we are determined to find these people too."

Both designs began appearing last summer, initially in the Saffron Lane area, but then spreading across the city.

Since then the council has spent more than £30,000 removing the tags from 2,500 locations.

It expects the clean-up bill to reach £100,000 by the summer if the culprits are not caught.

Private companies and residents are believed to have spent a similar sum.

A Narborough Road business owner said: "These vandals make the city look shabby and they have no respect for anyone else.

"If they are caught I wouldn't want them to go to prison, I want them to spend a year cleaning up their mess."

Launching the campaign – the first of its kind in the city – earlier this month, the council's environment chief Adrian Russell said the authority had mounted a number of unsuccessful surveillance operations to try to catch the taggers in the act.

Mr Russell said: "We have had days where we've come in to work and overnight there have been anything between 60 and 100 reports of these tags appearing. We really need help from the public if we are going to find these people and put them in front of the courts."

Anyone with information about the people responsible can contact the city wardens team on 0116 252 6430. All calls can be treated as confidential.

On the trail of one of Leicester's most prolific taggers


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