Transport for London boss, Andy Lord, ‘lied’ when he told the London Assembly that volunteers who had cleaned graffiti off the tube, had spray painted it on themselves.
Mr Lord made the accusation after a volunteer organisation, Looking For Growth (LfG) posted videos online of them cleaning graffiti off tube carriages in the capital.
At a meeting of the London Assembly, Mr Lord said that there was “evidence of people creating graffiti and then removing it”.
He went on to say that evidence was being ‘investigated by the relevant authorities”
However, a Freedom of Information request submitted by the group now confirmed that TfL did not have the evidence to back their claim up.
Emails seen by The Spectator reportedly show press officers for the Transport authority, which is responsible for London’s underground network, asking colleagues if “[we have] any evidence of this at all?”.
Another email reportedly asked: “Do we have anything on the claim that the relevant authorities are investigating?”.
The Spectator reports that there was no answer to either of these questions.
Director of the LfG, Laurence Newport called the accusations “absurd and wrong”, and the organisation’s co-founder, Joe Reeves, argued that the emails “prove that TfL lied when they accused our campaigners of criminal behaviour.”
He added that Andy Lord should “say sorry for lying”.
The organisation has asked Mr Lord to also join them on their next clean-up.
TfL said that the “commissioner was making reference to information that he had been made aware of verbally and of work being undertaken within TfL as part of our wider graffiti reduction strategy, which aims to prevent and tackle graffiti vandalism.”