Man convicted of spray-painting creepy graffiti on the side of the RCJ is banned from the building

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By Katie King on

Stay away! the court orders

A man from North London has been banned from the High Court after he was found guilty on one charge of criminal damage for spray-painting messages outside the building.

Last autumn, threatening graffiti appeared on the side of the Royal Courts of Justice just weeks before the iconic central London building played host to the Brexit judicial review hearing.

It read “Accept Bribe All the time” (sic) and “if you dont pay we will Kill you” (sic again). A further message read “who ever pays will be happy”.

In October, a 31-year-old man called Puya Nasr Esfahani was charged with criminal damage for his part in RCJ graffiti gate. At the time, Legal Cheek was told the offence for which he was charged allegedly took place on 25 September at 8.20pm.

Esfahani was bailed to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 February 2017, where he told the court he has legal problems and had to choose between spraying the graffiti or “grabbing” a lawyer of judge and “stamping on their head”. CourtNewsUK reports that District Judge Margot Coleman said:

Because of the nature of the damaged caused and the location where it was caused this is too serious to be dealt with with a fine a discharge. I am giving you a community order with two requirements for a period of 12 months. I am going to make a residence requirement that you live at the address provided to the court and the other requirement is an exclusion requirement excluding you from the Royal Courts of Justice and the area around the outside of the building.

This isn’t the first time the law courts have fallen foul to opportunistic doodling. Take a look at this piece from the archives, counting down some of the best court building defacement.

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