John brushes out vandals

THE Lower Blue Mountains has the “Graffiti Guy”. In regular life he’s grandpa, John Oakey, but he’s an anti-graffiti vigilante who roams his patch with a paint roller and determination.

Pride of Australia nominee John Oakey pulls out his pot of paint and brushes over the graffiti. Picture: Carmela Roche

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BARELY does the graffiti vandals’ paint dry before grandpa John Oakey pounces with his pot of paint and brushes the tags into oblivion.

Known to police as the “Graffiti Guy”, John Oakey, 75, loathes graffiti and voluntarily rubs out thousands of graffiti tags as he roams across the Lower Blue Mountains spotting newly sprouted scribbles in Lapstone, Warrimoo and his home suburb, Glenbrook.

“The quicker you paint them over the better; the graffiti artists feel they are wasting time so they go somewhere else,” the Pride of Australia nominee said.

“The Justice Department has given me a camera with a GPS on it so I take photos of the graffiti — that makes it easier for reporting and identifying the culprits.

“The council has given me a high-pressure hose on a trailer and the railway has given me paint.

“If the school gets hit, I already have the school colours, if it's a yellow wall I already have yellow so I paint the tags over.

“I have keys to the local high school, I check the toilets on the weekend.

“If the graffiti have tags I report them to police, the teachers look after the classrooms — we have a graffiti-free high school.”

Not sure how John Oakey would deal with Melbourne’s attitude to graffiti. This work by Lushsux is seen in Hosier Lane. They call it street art there. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Mr Oakey arrived in Glenbrook about 12 years ago from Killarney Heights and Forestville where he had erased graffiti for more than 20 years.

“In my book graffiti makes a place look scary if you don’t know the area.

“When I first started painting I was undercover, I didn’t want anybody to know, I would go out 6am or 9am after the kids went to school.”

“The easiest method is painting over: quick and easy.

“If graffiti is on metal fences, Blue Mountains Council supplies cleaning chemicals, we can clean brick walls and signs too.

“I paint everything, I don’t worry if it is council property or electricity poles because if you leave the graffiti there the kids can still see them.

John Oakey in action painting over the graffiti.

“I started getting kids from police for community service.

“I have had seven kids painting with me and only two have reoffended.

“The graffiti artists also get discouraged when they see their tags gone almost immediately.

“I recall kids had done a tag, on a railway substation in Blaxland on a whole length of a wall 10m to 20m long and 2m high.’’

Mr Oakey said on Thursday kids had crept into the substation to draw an outline. Friday night they came and coloured it in. On Saturday, before 8am, Mr Oakey painted the graffiti out.

“After that the wall did not get hit again.”

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IN OTHER NEWS — Few Kool CatS graffiti gang

THEY are allegedly one of Sydney’s most prolific and revered graffiti gangs, responsible for more than $100,000 worth of damage.

Using step ladders and protective masks as they allegedly deface trains police say the Few Kewl CatS (FKCS) are behind “bold, large scale, co-ordinated attacks” on our transport network.