Quartet honoured for stopping Mansfield graffiti artist

Street cleaner Gary Varnam, left, PC Ian Dickson, third from right, neighbourhood warden Tony Bower, second from right, and PC Amy Whitehouse, right, were among those honoured by Kate Allsop, Mansfield mayor, centre.

Gary Varnam, of Mansfield District Council’s street cleansing team, Tony Bower, council neighbourhood warden and PC Ian Dickson and PC Amy Whitehouse, were all commended for their work in stopping the serial graffiti tagger.

Mr Varnam recorded every instance of the graffiti he was asked to remove, which helped Mr Bower build evidence and a profile of a likely culprit.

From this, they were able to suggest a suspect and the two police officers then took up the case and managed to build on the evidence – culminated in the suspect admitting 40 offences of criminal damage.

Commending the quartet, Kate Allsop, Mansfield mayor, said: “We are really proud of the actions of the winners of the awards.”

The Mayor’s commendations are awarded at each full council meeting to any group or individual, who lives or works in Mansfield, and has gone the extra mile to make the district a better place.

Nominations for them can be emailed to [email protected], giving reasons why a group or individual should be commended.