Graffiti vandal behind a £34,000 rail crime spree is named

Ashley Byrd, 24, left his 'tag' at stations in the Black Country, and was finally caught after a dramatic police chase on rail tracks.

He was caught in an operation launched when 18 trains were vandalised in just 12 days.

Byrd would get on to the lines via a metal post and lie in wait in a tunnel as trains arrived into Birmingham New Street from the east.

As trains waited to come into the station, he would spray carriages just below the window and out of sight of passengers

He was finally arrested on December 27 last year, when a driver coming into New Street at around 7pm spotted him on the tracks.

Officers found him hiding in the tunnel and he fled, but police knew which way he would try to escape and were waiting for him at the other end.

His presences on the lines that evening caused delays totalling 467 minutes, costing Network Rail £30,556.

Carriage clean-up work cost £3,500.

Sketch books found at his house, on Inverness Road, Northfield, revealed tags matching those on the trains.

Traces of paint on his clothes matched that used on trains and at Dudley Port station, while his phone records linked him to times and dates when graffiti was scrawled at Coseley and Tipton stations.

Byrd went on to admit obstruction, trespass and criminal damage.

Last week, he was jailed for eight weeks and ordered to pay train operators CrossCountry and London Midland compensation of £3,772 in total.

PC Dave Rich from BTP in Birmingham said: “These were not victimless crimes: Byrd’s actions delayed passengers and the cost to clean his graffiti will undoubtedly be passed onto the travelling public in some form.

“We are satisfied with the sentence handed to him and we hope it sends a clear message to other graffiti vandals that we will do everything in our power to put you before the courts, who take a dim view of such mindless acts.”