• Man paints post box gold, gets arrested
    24 replies, posted
[B]Police have arrested a man for spray painting a Royal Mail post box gold in honour of Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie. [/B]Rob Smith, 51 painted the post box in Lymington High Street where the gold medallist lives. He said: "When they said they weren't going to paint anything in Lymington, I just thought this is madness." [B]The father-of-three was arrested at the scene on suspicion of criminal damage[/B], held in a police cell in Lyndhurst overnight and later released on bail. Mr Smith, who runs a bar and restaurant in the town, said locals were outraged when they heard a post box would be painted in the sailor's honour in Cornwall, where Ainslie grew up. He said: "He's lived here for around 15 years, all of Lymington believes that the Post Office made the wrong choice in painting one down in Cornwall, give him two." He decided to commemorate the sailor by spraying the post box gold with two cans of car paint on his way home from work at about 01:30 BST. Mr Smith said: "I did it because I'm a passionate sportsman, I think the Olympics have been brilliant, Ben's achievements have been outstanding. "We've got to recognise these people and say thank you." Royal Mail spokesman Heulyn Gwyn Davies said: "[B]We are extremely disappointed that someone has chosen to vandalise this particular post box. [/B]"[B]It is illegal to tamper with any of our post boxes and we are liaising with our engineers to ensure that it is repainted red as soon as possible.[/B]" [IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62204000/jpg/_62204124_postbox.jpg[/IMG] [URL]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-19223242[/URL]
Even though there's tons of other post boxes sprayed gold already?
I don't know if I could be bothered to arrest him. Allow a bit of national pride, or fill on all the forms after I cuff him.
WTF they're supposed to be red. what was he thinking?
The royal mail and police are making themselves sound like twats tbh. The man had no malicious intent.
Yeah I'm on the post office's side on this one
[QUOTE=Postal service:]"We are extremely disappointed that someone has chosen to vandalise [B]this particular[/B] post box.[/QUOTE] "It was best man at my wedding and is the Godfather of my child."
Just have him repaint it in its original color and be done with it, this is a no issue.. In my opinion, what's the problem of having it being repainted anyways? the post guy makes it sound like someone vandalised it, it's just a coat of paint, jeez.
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;37182068]WTF they're supposed to be red. what was he thinking?[/QUOTE] Royal Mail are painting post boxes gold in towns where anyone who won a gold medal grew up [img]http://cdn.radiocloud.co.uk/images/320x240/b8a16daa926c907d9eacddf48-1344239293039.png[/img]
I don't see what difference it makes whether the post box is gold or red.
But he isn't tampering with the mail box at all It's just paint, the fuck
This isn't a big deal at all.
Who gives a shit, it's just a post box.
As stupid as it might sound, he really has no business doing that.
It looks quite nice
Man that post box looks fucking classy. All the postboxes should be gold.
He did have no malicious intent but he should of asked for permission first before spraypainting it, it isn't his property.
[Img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/592540.jpg[/Img]
The tradition is to paint it where the winner grew up, not where they lived for the past 15 years. To uphold the meaning of the gold post box, I'd say I'm with the post office on this one. Sure, it makes the post office and the police seem cruel but if every town did this, the gold post box would no longer have much meaning
It's not his property to paint. However noble his intentions this is clearly vandalism as far the law is concerned. Not sure what he was expecting to happen.
[QUOTE=matt.ant;37181972]"It is illegal to tamper with any of our post boxes and we are liaising [B]with our engineers[/B] to ensure that it is repainted red as soon as possible."[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://www.anbusivam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/engineer.gif[/IMG] "Yeah, just paint it red here, here and here."
Painting a postbox is a mighty task of engineering my friend!
[QUOTE=matt.ant;37182102]Royal Mail are painting post boxes gold in towns where anyone who won a gold medal grew up [img]http://cdn.radiocloud.co.uk/images/320x240/b8a16daa926c907d9eacddf48-1344239293039.png[/img][/QUOTE] That gold paint looks much cheaper than the one he used. They should ask him for tips during his trial.
Cool that's near me, near one of the official ones in Hamble too. Shame they're gonna paint it red again
They didn't paint that one gold because that's the not the town he is from. It's just the town he spent most of his childhood or whatever. This old man just wanted his town to feel special.
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