Graffiti lover from Britain faces 10 years in prison for signing an autograph on an ancient Thai fortress
The fame of the Great Banksy, whose graffiti is worth millions, haunts thousands of imitators. Many people also want to earn money as an anonymous street artist and at the same time remain in the shadows. Modesty is an important condition for success in street art, as a narrow-minded amateur of wall painting from Liverpool, who is now settling in a not too hospitable Thai prison, was convinced on his own skin.
A tourist from Liverpool has a great chance to spend the next 10 years of his life in one of the prisons of the Kingdom of Thailand for an inscription made on the wall of an ancient fortress with an aerosol can.
Lee Furlong, a 23-year-old traveler from the UK (pictured above on the left) was detained by Thai police after he was identified by a recording from one of the security cameras of a popular tourist destination.
The tourist decided to perpetuate his stay in an exotic country with the inscription in black paint "Scousse Lee", which can be translated from the urban jargon of Furlong's homeland as "Liverpulets Lee".
The autograph was left on October 18 at 4 a.m. on the brick wall of the 13th-century fortress gate of Tha Phae in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.
The lover of sights was not alone — at the time of the offense, his coeval, a girl from Canada, Britney Schneider, was next to him. However, the guest from overseas turned out to be more modest than the Englishman and left only one letter on the wall of the historical monument — "B".
It took only two hours for the police from Chiang Mai to identify the vandals, find them, and deliver them to the police station. The guests of the country were arrested in a hotel located on the same street as the damaged cultural heritage site.
Immediately after the arrest, the attackers were taken to the crime scene for an investigative experiment and a photo shoot for the press. By this time, hardworking Thais, armed with brushes, gloves and basins of water, had removed the stupid inscription from the wall that decorated the city for more than 800 years without a trace.
According to the detainees, the events were developing, although not rapidly, but quite dynamically. The languid evening preceding the offense, Lee and Britney spent in the company of each other, casual acquaintances and local alcohol.
Towards morning, feeling slightly tired from drinking, the young people went to the Mad Monkey hostel, where they rented beds. Finding an aerosol can with black paint on the way, Furlong decided to fool around and immediately made the ill-fated inscription on the fortress.
Schneider decided to keep up and also leave an autograph, but she was prevented from completing what she had started by a passing tuk-tuk driver who advised her to drop the can and go to bed.
Tourists were unpleasantly surprised by the inhospitable behavior of the Thais, who plan to try them and sentence them to a solid prison term, as well as a fine of 1 million baht (more than 2 million rubles).
Crimes aimed at damaging historical and architectural monuments are punished very strictly in the Kingdom of Thailand. The law punishing hooligans was adopted in 1961 and applies equally to both local stooges and guests. It is not difficult to understand the authorities of this country, because the income received from tourism makes up the lion's share of the budget of a poor state.
Keywords: Arrest | Vandalism | Graffiti | Fortress | Thailand | Tourists