Train vandals buy paint at station

When Network Rail received the application to open an "art shop" at Clapham Junction station it was only too happy to oblige.

Now, 18 months later, NR - formerly Railtrack - is desperately trying to close the shop after discovering it is a main supplier of aerosol paint used by graffiti vandals to damage trains and railway property.

NR was alerted by British Transport Police, who found the name of the shop appearing on cans of paint they confiscated.

The shop, Graphotism in St John's Hill, has thousands of paint cans as well as posters and books carrying pictures of paint-vandalised trains.

The shop is exposed tonight as part of a Meridian television series about railway trespass and vandalism.

An undercover reporter visiting the store was offered a "special-sized can that can easily fit in the pocket" and a aerosol said to be the "largest spray-can in the world".

Programme producer Mike Pearse said: "When I confronted staff in the shop they admitted they knew where the paint was likely to end up.

"I stood in the shop and watched children between 12 and 14 years old being sold cans of paint."

Nobody from Graphotism would speak to the Evening Standard.

Margaret Howard, NR head of route crime for the South-East, said: "I am appalled at the amount of websites, magazines and shops now willing to encourage graffiti. They don't seem to realise it could send children to their deaths."