A vile racist slur was spray-painted onto the fence of a home in Fife.
The sickening slur 'n****r' was daubed across a fence that leads down a footpath between Spittalfield Road and Ballast Bank in a quiet housing estate in Inverkeithing on Thursday.
Disgusted residents called on the council to have the graffiti removed. When the Record visited the scene on Friday morning, it was still there.
A number of handprints using white paint had also been left behind.
Resident Ann Marie Martin, 49, said the graffiti was ‘disgusting to see’ and was different from the usual low level vandalism she had seen in the area.
The dog walker said: “We often walk down here and you’ll see groups of kids hanging about together as they walk down from the shop up the road. It can be a wee bit intimidating but I think they’re just bored.
“Normally you see bins knocked over or plants pulled out their pots but this graffiti is disgusting to see. I’d hope it wasn’t targeted to any particular person in the street and was just done by some mindless numpty who doesn’t realise the consequences of their actions.
“There’s a fair bit of spray paint graffiti in the area so I suspect some young ones have got hold of a can and were just being a nuisance.”
Liz Clark, 38, whose elderly mother lives in the street, added: “Mum’s always telling me about kids in the area being pests. It’s mostly harmless stuff but this is different from what we normally see.
“It is shocking to be honest and I hope whoever is responsible takes a long, hard look at themselves. A fair few houses here have Ring doorbells or CCTV now so hopefully one of the cameras will have caught them.
“And then hopefully their parents will have a word because this kind of behaviour is just not acceptable in any way.”
Another local, Frank, who has lived in the area for over 66 years, said: “I actually didn’t notice it when I walked past at first because I’m just so used to seeing graffiti around here now. There’s more further along the footpath which is fairly fresh looking.
“You can almost see a path where some of the kids have been walking about with the litter that they’ve dropped. I hope it’s cleaned off soon.
“I’ve lived here a long time and I’m not aware of any families who are ethnic so I do doubt this will be aimed at any one in particular. “That doesn’t make it any less disgusting though.”
Patricia Spacey, Safer Communities Manager at Fife Council, said: "Graffiti is a serious crime that impacts all members of the community and the removal of graffiti is costly to the council. We aim to clean graffiti as soon as possible after it is reported to us, particularly if it is offensive.
"We rely on the public coming forward and reporting graffiti. You can do this online at www.fife.gov.uk or phone 03451 55 00 22. Any graffiti of this nature should also be reported to police as a hate crime."
Police Scotland said the incident had not been reported to them.
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