Obscenity spray painted on St Mary's Church in Sholing, Southampton

The first thing Revd Garry Roberts saw when he arrived at St Mary’s in Sholing on Saturday morning and saw the vulgar term.

It had been spray-painted on the main entrance to the building in large white letters.

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The graffiti was likely completed on Friday evening – just hours before the church was set to open for its first Spring Sale event since Covid restrictions eased.

“We came down and found that word scrawled across the front door,” said Rev Roberts.

“We all make stupid choices, I made plenty of them as a teenager. But it’s just an understanding of what this building is for.

“The worst thing is, we have a funeral here on Wednesday and I was horrified to think that, firstly, our community would have arrived and that would have been the first thing they were going to see -we had to bring them in the back door.

“Secondly, a grieving family are going to gather here and I guess it was a young person.

“If that was your nan, would you want to see that word scrawled across the door?”

Southampton-based company Hillfox Developments kindly removed the spray paint from the door, free of charge.

But the issue is far from resolved, as the entrance to the listed building has been left damaged and stained.

“We are going to have to strip the door because the church is listed,” added Rev Roberts.

“What people don’t realise is, we don’t get any money from anywhere.

“The money we generate is from our ever-dwindling congregation, and we would much rather be spending our money on our new toddler group.

“We had planned to buy new toys for the kids, but that cash will now be wasted on repairing something that shouldn’t need repairing.”

The overall cost is yet to be determined, but Revd Roberts said it is likely to be “in the hundreds”.

A phallic drawing was also spray-painted on wall of the alleyway running alongside the church in St Monica Road.