A FERNDALE shop owner has hit out at graffiti vandals who have sprayed their tag in over a dozen locations around the local community.

John Doyle, who owns John’s Second Hand Furniture on the corner of Osbourne Street and Whitehouse Road, arrived at work on Tuesday morning to find that his shopfront had been targeted.

It is the second such attack in just over two weeks – on the night of September 10 his shop window was smashed and a bigger piece of graffiti sprayed across the wooden doors.

Now John says enough is enough.

“I took it personally the first time but now they’ve come back and done it again,” said John.

“I just thought not again, are they trying to break me or something?

“We’re only a small shop, we don’t make much money and some of what we do get we try to give to charity – they’re robbing from the community doing this.”

The same tag, which appears to spell out a name or a word but is indecipherable for most people, has appeared on walls, road signs, the outside of businesses and garages in the streets all around John’s shop.

The main sign for St Mark’s Recreation Ground and the Swindon Community Centre has also been targeted along with billboards on adjoining roads.

The tags are not creative pieces of work, in fact they are more like inconsistent scribbles done in a rush.

But they still require specialist cleaning each time they are left which comes at a cost to the small businesses that are at the heart of the local area.

“There are walls around town where they can go and paint and it’s allowed,” said John as he considered the cost of getting the latest damage removed.

“Some of those big murals look really good, but not this stuff.

“This is just mindless tagging and it’s all over the place – it’s getting out of hand now.

“It makes our town look like a real mess and something should be done about it.”

For John, this repeated vandalism comes at an already difficult time.

The Doyle family were hit by a heavy blow last month when their 29-year-old fell ill suddenly on a holiday to Bulgaria and died.

The first attack by the vandals came just two days after Michael’s funeral.

“We’re trying to grieve and none of us are doing too well with it, but we’re doing the best we can.

“But we don’t need this – it’s just a kick in the teeth on top of everything else.

“We didn’t open this place long ago, it’s not a big business but any business is hard to get off the ground.

“My son was really proud of me for doing this – I want to keep going for him but sometimes this type of thing just makes you want to shut the doors.”

John has reported both incidents to the police and has been told that patrols were being stepped up in the area.

He says he has seen an increase in PCSOs on cycle patrols during the day but that at night it doesn’t feel as if anyone is watching the neighbourhood.

Sgt Dave Flynn, of the Swindon North Central Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “We are investigating this and are appealing for witnesses.

“If anyone saw or heard anything suspicious in this area please can they contact me on 101 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”