A judge said he would like to take a prolific graffiti vandal by the scruff of the neck and force him to clean every piece of filth on public transport in London, as he jailed him for six months at Harrow Crown Court.

Judge Barrington Black also said Michael Potter, 19, of Kenton Lane had been 'impertinent and arrogant' as he sentenced him to four concurrent 12 month sentences, six months of which will be suspended.

"If I had the power, I would have you taken by the scruff of the neck and have you compelled to clean each and every piece of filth on public transport in this city, but I don't believe that would, or could, be done by you.

"Apart from the expense to the owners and public of cleaning these mutilated forms of transport, to inflict and expose on the general public these offensive and unsightly scratchings and drawings is both impertinent and arrogant, to say nothing of the offensive comments which you found it necessary to make about the police force.

"It is not art. Art is something people choose to view. You were imposing your marks upon a long-suffering public," said Judge Black at the hearing on Monday.

Potter caused £10,000 of damage to Underground trains by daubing SUKA on them, using a doctored marker pen, and etching it onto windows. He also advocated 'kicking cops to death' in his tags.

He was arrested in March thanks to information supplied by Times Group readers after being caught on CCTV defacing a Northern Line train in Edgware.

In his defence, Martin McCarthy said Potter came from a stable family, had a promising career as a carpenter and had already suffered public shame owing to the intense media interest in his case.

"The kick of seeing his name on trains will quickly have evaporated when he saw himself in the newspapers alongside wanted posters. He has been publicly humiliated," he said.

April 30, 2003 17:00