16 January 2025 , 15:56
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A London council has been forced to remove their pride flags after they were repeatedly vandalised.
Flags painted on the ground outside Forest Gate station were vandalised four separate times times in June and July.
Detectives launched an appeal to find a man, wearing a hoodie and face covering, caught on CCTV covering the flags in black, white and red paint.
But police have said after being unable to identify any suspects they have closed the investigation, and the council has give up restoring the flags.
The Metropolitan Police told Metro: ‘The Met takes all incidents of homophobic and transphobic hate crime, including criminal damage, extremely seriously.
‘A thorough investigation was held following four incidents in 2024 in which painted Pride flags were vandalised in Forest Gate.
Detectives launched an appeal to find the vandal (Picture: Met Police)
The flags were repeatedly damaged last year (Picture: Ella Millward)
No one has been charged with the damage
‘No suspects have been identified and the investigation has been closed. If any new information is provided to police, this will be assessed.’
The flags were first reported to be vandalised on March 9, and later on June 23 and 26.
The latest incident was reported on July 19.
A fifth incident was also reported in August, but police said they suspected it was an attempt to cover up a previous defacement.
The flags have since been removed
One business owner told Metro: ‘I didn’t realise they had closed the investigation. The flags were definitely vandalized quite a few times.
‘Police came and checked my CCTV but I then didn’t hear anything. I don’t know if it was the same person or a group of people.
‘Forest Gate Pride is definitely still going strong. It’s still a very active community but I’m not sure what the next steps are.’
Arwel, assistant manager at the Forest Tavern, said: ‘I helped clean up the damage the first time it happened, because they just used spray paint.
‘But after that they used strong substances until it seeped through the flags and wouldn’t come off unless you ripped the whole flag off, which we then had to do.
‘It’s disappointing it happened, especially because there’s a strong queer community in the area. There are lots of other flags in the area which haven’t been damaged.’
Newham Council have since installed ‘pride wraps on lamp columns’ in the hope this would deter vandals.
The council has installed pride wraps on lamposts instead
They said: ‘The Council has worked alongside local residents to take a firm stand against hate, removing the vandalised Forest Gate Pride flags, with the support of the community, and replacing them with Pride wraps on lamp columns in the area.’
Rob Desroches, founder of Forest Gayte Pride, told Metro: ‘It’s really tragic it happened – it felt like we were being attacked everytime we walked to the Co-op.
‘The flags were in place for four years before it all started, but a month after they were put in someone wrote “save our children” on top of one.
‘After the fourth time, we and the council agreed we should just remove them and look to install something different.
‘It’s really unfortunate that one person has ruined it. Before this the area didn’t feel homophobic, but now we are noticing a lot more derogatory comments online. It’s like people feel they now have permission to be horrible.
‘But this has brought the queer community closer together. On the day they were taken off we had the wraps installed on the lampposts so there wasn’t any point there wasn’t pride imagery in the area.’