THE SINISTER RED PAINT ATTACKS PLAGUING LONDON

Mystery surrounds a spate of vandalised homes. Could Chinese Triad gangs be responsible? David James Smith reports

- David James Smith reports

A year ago, a general election was being called. In north-east London, Stella Creasy was pitched into the fight to retain her seat as the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow. A keen user of Instagram, she posted a reel as she began her successful campaign for re-election. "Day three and we are painting the town red," she wrote.

I doubt she would say that now. Painting Walthamstow red has become a crime of the night, after a succession of sinister and still unexplained red paint attacks in the early hours at addresses across the Waltham Forest borough that contains Creasy’s constituency.

This week, the MP appeared concerned that the police were not yet treating the repeated vandalism with the seriousness it deserved. “I am renewing my plea for some expert assistance to Waltham Forest police to catch the perpetrators,” Creasy told The London Standard.

In most of the incidents, red paint has been splashed, smeared or daubed across multiple properties. One of the buildings is usually singled out with the allegation that it is a “brothel” — the word scrawled on to the exterior. In some cases, handwritten notes have been put through nearby letterboxes, identifying the same property as a brothel. But who is responsible, and why?

The latest attack, in the early hours of May 16 in Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow, was revealed by the Standard’s City Hall Editor Ross Lydall, who came across it by chance. Again, the word “brothel” was scrawled across the property entrance. But this time CCTV footage appeared to reveal the attackers as two women.

In the aftermath of the incident, a man of east Asian appearance, who said he was unable to speak English, attempted to wash away the paint.