POLICE are investigating after a swastika and homophobic graffiti were daubed on a war memorial at a historic cemetery.
A tour guide with a group of visitors from New York came across the graffiti at the New Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh, over the weekend.
Notable family plots at the cemetery, which was opened in 1820, include those of author Robert Louis Stevenson. It is also home to the Commonwealth War Graves of five Merchant Navy seamen lost in the sinking of an Arctic Convoy tanker, MV Atheltemplar, during the Second World War.
The cemetery also contains four war graves from the First World War, of a British Army soldier and officer and a Royal Air Force officer and aircraftsman. Offensive graffiti was also found at another Edinburgh landmark, Jacob’s Ladder, last week and in Motherwell “scum of the earth” was written on a war memorial.
Edinburgh city centre councillor Joanna Mowat said: “We live in intolerant times with indecent language from all sides of the political spectrum. The tone of political debate has coarsened.
“It’s very concerning but the fact it was the second such incident in a very short space of time which hopefully means it’s the work of one person. Language is used in a casual way which is very, very frightening for members of the community – we need to moderate and be careful of what we say.”
Mowat has been calling for the council to appoint an anti-graffiti tsar. Police appealed for witnesses.
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