Inside Melbourne’s ‘graffiti war’ and the crew that took police 20 years to crack

Almost 20 years after James Scott-Howarth’s house and parents’ business were raided over links to secretive graffiti crew 70K, he sat in court and watched footage of himself, in his early 20s, illegally spraying his moniker, “Stan”, throughout the city. In the early 2000s, Scott-Howarth was one of the most prolific graffiti artists in Melbourne. Footage in a documentary posted on YouTube and played to the court, entitled “70K”, shows daring acts of vandalism. Crew members dangled off the back of moving trains, darted out over tracks to paint stationary carriages and ran through the shadows to hide from transport guards in train lots. In one scene captured on video, a train bearing the 70K name departs after two masked people paint the carriage, making it a moving billboard to display their tag around the city. Scott-Howarth’s story came to a head in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as the 46-year-old admitted to 14 counts of criminal damage and theft during his time with the 70K crew, whose tags in public places became notorious in the CBD between 2001 and 2005. The vision played in court and Scott-Howarth’s prosecution offered a rare glimpse into the crew central to Melbourne’s...