Frankie Winters woke with a sense of dread. "Oh my God," he remembers thinking. "What the hell have I done?"
Crushing regret in the mornings became a familiar feeling for Frankie last year when he got into a habit of spending nights spraying graffiti in Abergavenny town centre. The 25-year-old eventually landed in court, where he admitted 17 counts of criminal damage and was ordered to pay £2,500 in compensation.
But this is not just a story of vandalism. While some in Abergavenny cheered the former soldier's prosecution, many others praised the colourful street art he brought to the town. Frankie says he "deeply" regrets the tagging which led to his court case and suspended prison sentence — but he is proud of his underpass murals, which have won hundreds of admirers on local social media. Support flooded in this week after pictures of his work were shared on Facebook, with one comment dubbing Frankie the "Aber Banksy".
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Nothing is simple about the decisions which led the softly spoken artist to court. He lives with a condition called dissociative identity disorder, which he says fragments his consciousness into "different versions" of himself. During his tagging spree, he says it was like he was on "autopilot" and another personality had taken over.
Frankie's mental health is now in a better place. In an indepth interview he has spoken to WalesOnline about the vision he had for the town, the morning he woke up to Taser-carrying police in his flat, his "terrible" experience of the criminal justice system, and his plans to bring his art to a new area.
Born into an army family on an SAS base in Herefordshire, Frankie envisioned a career in the forces. At the age of 17 he joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers corps. "I really enjoyed certain aspects," he said. "A lot of people in the army like to throw their weight around, which didn't sit well with me. I got in a little bit of trouble for standing up to that, but nothing too wild."
Frankie received a medical discharge in around 2019 for mental health reasons. He spent time living in Crickhowell with his mum — an oil painter who is often commissioned for campus work — before moving to Abergavenny where some of his friends were living.
"When I came out of the army I started smoking cannabis in social settings and it got out of hand," he said. "It was doing more harm than good. Art definitely helped lift me out of that. I'd used cannabis as an escape from being stuck in my mind, and art offered the same kind of escape."
Frankie had always been artistic and at one time aspired to be a tattooist, but he only started painting street art about a year ago. "It gets you hyper-focused, planning for hours, choosing the colour scheme, getting the paint. It helped me get a lot of things back on track in my life, having that escape and wanting to make something for everyone to enjoy."
One of his pieces was in the Heads of the Valleys underpass at Llanfoist. There seemed something of Japanese manga comics about the mural depicting blood trickling from a pair of green eyes. In a clever twist, the stream of red flowed beneath the piece's main border and onto the ground. One passer-by shared a picture on Facebook with the caption: "For those who think graffiti is vandalism... Better than a lot in the Tate Modern." The post had almost 800 'likes'.
Frankie was pleasantly surprised by the way his graffiti was being received. One impressed local asked if he could do anything about a Tredilion Road underpass scrawled with homophobic and racial slurs. The underpass owner agreed Frankie could overhaul the graffiti, so in around January he spent almost £500 on paint and created two vibrant murals — one a blue-haired woman inhaling the scent of a flower, the other a face bathed in an array of colours.
"All the residents were happy with me," he said. "My partner was with me on the odd occasion and we never had a single bad reaction from anyone. Dog walkers were always stopping and talking. One guy in particular has stayed with me. He was an elderly gentleman who used to teach fine art. My stuff was a very different genre but he absolutely loved it. He told me that whenever he went walking he always looked out to see what I'd done."
Buoyed by the warm responses Frankie started a petition for a legal graffiti wall in the town. Having spent some of his childhood in Abergavenny, he wanted to see an outlet for creative youngsters. "I remember there was absolutely nothing to do here, unless you were really sports-oriented and joined a football club," he said.
More than 100 people signed the petition to Monmouthshire Council, in which Frankie argued a legal place for graffiti would bring "a huge decrease in wanton vandalism and graffiti... and the cost that comes with the removal". Although Frankie says the campaign was met with "a lot more positivity than negativity", there was a backlash from some on social media.
"For some people there is still the negative connotation of antisocial teenagers causing mayhem," Frankie added. "I remember one of the comments saying, 'Raise the price of spray cans and make him choose between drugs and paint.' I had to laugh because I've been teetotal for over three years. It was graffiti that helped me get back on the straight and narrow."
But while Frankie was pushing for the wall, things started to go wrong. He said: "You get graffiti artists who do tags or bombing, like very basic lettering, and then there are street artists who do murals that the general public would consider actual art. I've always had one foot on either side. My mural art takes quite a while and if I'm there for a few hours it's not something I can do at night-time and not get caught, so I was doing bombs. That's what I was arrested for.
"It was about trying to propel that legal wall, but I went about it the wrong way, for which I do apologise. I was suffering a lot with pretty bad mental health issues at the time. I was just starting my medication and my choices weren't the greatest.
"My consciousness fragmented in a way. When I dissociate my consciousness goes on autopilot and other personalities take over. They have their own ego. I wasn't myself at the time. I wasn't thinking about the effects."
Frankie's tag was the word "Mage" which, he explains, is "a person who seeks higher knowledge". He insists he never intended to vandalise any private property. Most of his 17 charges were over graffiti on public property like phone boxes and public toilets. But two were for painting on charity shops Dogs Trust and Oxfam. He says this graffiti was from a paint pen and could be "wiped down easily with a wet wipe" but he regrets putting it there.
Frankie claims he was tagging for around three months and stopped in January when his mental health improved. A few weeks later he woke to see six police officers holding Tasers in his flat, he claims.
"They had let themselves in," he said. "They were shouting, 'Stop moving, get up.' They ripped everything out of my flat looking for spray paint and art books. They destroyed £200 worth of my materials, sketchbooks and stickers."
Gwent Police released Frankie on bail but he claims he was detained again over the following weeks, spending the night at Newport police station on two occasions. He says the force suspected him of breaking his bail conditions by continuing to graffiti, which Frankie claims was not the case. "The graffiti hadn't been reported until that time, but it had been done months prior," he said.
Although Frankie says he was ready to plead guilty immediately, the case was repeatedly delayed. On six occasions he and his partner spent money on travel to Newport Magistrates' Court only for the case to be adjourned, he says.
"Each time the prosecution's case was not ready," he said. "My experience of the criminal justice system was terrible. I wouldn't say I'm angry but I can see why a lot of people lose their faith in the justice system. I never really had any to begin with."
Frankie was eventually sentenced on July 1 to a two-month jail term suspended for a year. He was ordered to pay £85 in prosecution costs on top of the £2,500 in compensation. Although he is not in paid work, Frankie says he is paying the debt at a manageable rate of £50 a month.
A curfew means he must stay in his Monk Street flat from 7pm to 7am for three months. Frankie was also banned from carrying a spray paint in public for three years, but only overnight.
Even now Frankie would "love nothing more" than to paint a mural in Abergavenny town centre. He is planning another piece soon for the Tredilion Road underpass, which might depict the legendary Welsh leader Owain Glyndŵr. But despite being touched by locals' support, he plans to leave Abergavenny after his curfew tag comes off, so he can continue his work in a community more used to seeing street art.
Glasgow and Bristol are potential destinations for Frankie, who has been inspired by the "amazing" graffiti scenes in both cities and hopes his nights in police cells are behind him. "I'm looking to live a life of peace," he said. "I can't be a***d with all the drama. I've had a bit of a bump in the road but I'm not letting it slow me down too much."
A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesperson said: “Following the police charging the defendant, a first hearing was scheduled for April 6, 2022, and was adjourned while the CPS sought additional information from the police. Following a number of further adjournments when information was being clarified, the case then progressed and the defendant was sentenced on July 1, 2022, just under three months after the initial hearing date.” You can read more court stories here.
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