A SPATE of graffiti in Lyme Regis may be linked to the increased drug use among young people.

Yobs sprayed messages and pictures in the Marine Parade Shelters, the gazebo in the seafront gardens, and on a bench along Gun Cliff Walk on Saturday night.

The multicoloured graffiti read ‘We are the children’ and ‘We are the children of the night’, with pictures of cannabis leaves and cartoon faces.

PC Richard Winward said drug use might be linked to the incident. He said: “It might cause a sense of bravado. If people think they are getting away with stuff they might feel they can do this without getting caught.”

As the graffiti was sprayed in various colours, police believe someone went out with the intent to deface property.

PC Winward said: “The fact it was several colours means people went out with the intention of doing graffiti. That’s more determined than we are used to, it’s been with marker pens in the past which they may get from school.

“There were no specific tags, other than they kept writing ‘We are the children of the night’.

“They have probably written that in their school books or at home somewhere because it’s quite a distinctive phrase – someone is going to know who that is and some young people may have seen them with cans of paint.

“Obviously I want to arrest an offender for this graffiti, and would like any information from anyone who witnessed it or believes they know who is responsible. I believe that it must have been witnessed and I also believe that most of the Lyme youth would have been disgusted that their town was being defaced.

“Some of the graffiti was also written with a marker pen on the floor of the shelters giving directions to skaters, such as arrows and ‘jump here’ or ‘skate here’, so it’s not giving skateboarders a good name either.”

The graffiti was left until Monday morning when police and town council workers could deal with it, leaving it visible to visitors on Sunday.

“This doesn’t happen a lot in Lyme and that’s why it’s noticeable,” said PC Winward. “People obviously don’t like it and get shocked by it because it doesn’t turn up very often. I think people feel intimidated.

“It makes it feel like people can please themselves and it gives the general impression that Lyme Regis is typical of any other town and graffiti is a way if life, which of course it certainly isn’t.”