Man charged with Pam the Bird graffiti attacks on Flinders Street Station clock, CityLink Cheese Stick
Police have seized abseiling gear and other tools as they charged a man over some of Melbourne’s most high-profile “Pam the Bird” graffiti attacks, including on the Flinders Street Station clock.
Victoria
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A man has been charged over some of Melbourne’s most high-profile “Pam the Bird” graffiti attacks, including on the Flinders Street Station clock and CityLink “Cheese Stick” column.
Police have charged a 21-year-old man from Yarraville with more than 50 offences, including criminal damage, burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.
The man is alleged to be behind notorious acts of graffiti, including defacing the Flinders Street Station clock tower in July last year, police said on Friday.
Other notable incidents the man has been charged with include plastering Pam the Bird graffiti on the famous yellow Cheese Stick column on CityLink, the Nine Network building in Docklands, a hotel in South Wharf and concrete silos on Mercer St in Geelong.
The damage from the alleged vandalism spree is estimated to exceed $100,000.
The 21-year-old was arrested at Victoria University in Footscray sporting a pair of Lightning McQueen Crocs.
He is accused of ramming an allegedly stolen Volkswagen into the Nando’s restaurant on Barkly St late last year.
The vehicle was spray-painted with text reading “we don’t accept cash here”.
It caused significant damage to the store.
Police seized an abundance of abseiling gear and various tools used to access buildings during the search warrants.
They say the Yarraville man appeared to be the sole alleged offender responsible for the Pam the Bird tag.
Authorities were tracking him for “quite some time”.
The pair arrested was known to offend together, allegedly painting their respective tags next to each other.
Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Jason Wombwell said the arrests were the result of a tough and “old-fashioned” police investigation.
“He definitely knows what he’s doing in terms of the climbing and gaining access,” Sergeant Wombwell said.
“It’s always good to come to the conclusion of a successful arrest and operation.”
A 39-year-old Abbotsford man was also arrested during the raids and has been charged with more than 20 offences relating to the graffiti of trains and a Docklands office building.
He has been charged over the SROCK tag, which appeared next to Pam the Bird graffiti.
Both men have been remanded and are due to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines said there was “no excuse” for those who break the law, labelling graffiti a “scourge” that must be stamped out.
“You can make … excuses about it, but in the end, you break in the law, and it’s not clever and it’s not smart,” he said.
“It’s dangerous, and it’s something that we need to stamp out, and we have very strong penalties in place that the courts can draw on to hold people to account.”
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said he was “delighted” to hear about the arrests.
“Pam the bird has cost the ratepayers, the taxpayers, the property owners of Melbourne a fortune in cleaning costs and the arrest of these two alleged offenders is a step forward for the in the war to clean up Melbourne,” he said.
“Any artistic merit in the work of Pam the bird is more than outweighed by the vandalism and the cost of the defacing of fine Melbourne buildings by Pam the Bird.
“This is not art, this is vandalism, pure and simple.”
Cleaning graffiti in the city has been one of Mr Reece’s top priorities since he took office in November.
The City of Melbourne also recently commissioned a “cleaning blitz” of problem areas during the Australian Open.
Originally published as Man charged with Pam the Bird graffiti attacks on Flinders Street Station clock, CityLink Cheese Stick
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