Ref. 73085-06FOUR racist graffiti attacks in Swindon in recent days may be linked, police say.

In the latest, a car hire business in Armstrong Street, off Manchester Road, was hit.

Blue paint was sprayed on six of the 14 cars in its yard, and an offensive word written on the bonnet of one.

The latest attack happened at about 8.15pm on Sunday.

On Friday, racist graffiti was sprayed on the side wall of a house in Victoria Road, and two days earlier similar attacks were carried out on a house front in Union Street and one in North Street.

Swindon police spokeswoman Alvina Kumar said: "We are not ruling out the possibility that all four attacks are linked."

In the first three attacks, black paint was used.

The car hire firm, Eurodrive, was set up 14 months ago by Sadik Ali, 35.

Mr Ali had to close the business while the paint was removed from the cars, but he has vowed that business will continue as usual from now on.

He said: "We have been here for 14 months, and we have never had any trouble until now.

"We're not going to be frightened by this.

"We're going to carry on serving our customers, and we have hundreds of satisfied customers in the area.

"We have taken the cars to the body shop to have the paint removed with solvents, and we had to cancel reservations from five customers because of this."

Mr Ali and brother Ahsan were alerted to the vandalism yesterday morning.

A local person has told them the cars were unmarked at about 8pm on Sunday, but that the graffiti had appeared only a few minutes later.

Mrs Kumar added: "We do not and will not tolerate hate crime of any kind. No-one should have to suffer hate crime, and we would encourage the public to come forward with information so that we can take positive action against the perpetrators.

"We police a multi-cultural society which can display examples of racism.

"This is reflected by the racist incidents that we have to deal with, all of which are treated sensitively and with the utmost seriousness."

Any information should be given to the police on 01793 528111, or via the confidential CrimeStoppers hotline on 0800 555 111.

Barrie Hudson