An existential nihilist from Westbury on Trym has been jailed after he was found guilty of vandalising hundreds of Bristol pavements with his unique ‘bike’ tag.

Gordan Cranthorne, 44, was arrested by police in the early hours of 14 September 2018, when he was found painting an abstract likeness of a bicycle onto a busy pedestrian thoroughfare in Redcliffe using thick white paint.

Tens if not hundreds of other examples of similarly painted white bicycles have since been discovered on pavements largely used by pedestrians across Bristol, all of which have been attributed to the forty-four year old.

On 25 May 2019 at Bristol Crown Court, Judge Jeffrey Jefferson handed down a sentence of 57 years in jail without probation, for seeking endangerment to the lives of humans and cyclists.

“It is clear to me that your painting of these bicycles was in no way driven by artistic ambition.

You set out to lure naive cyclists into thinking it was acceptable to treat pavements like some kind of ‘car-road’ for bikes,” said Judge Jefferson.

Mr Cranthorne said: “If breaking down societal boundaries, jolting people out of their personal bubbles and bringing them together by encouraging minor collisions is crime, then lock me up and throw away the key.”