A VANDAL has painted a love message across a sculpture in a North-East town.

The message - which reads I So Luv U Quattro Yes I Do - appeared overnight on Wednesday on the 130ft-long Brick Train on the outskirts of Darlington. Commuters spotted the white graffiti yesterday morning as they drove along the A66.

Malcolm Green, from Newton Aycliffe, said: "It's stood there for years and nobody has touched it and now someone has done this. It's an absolute disgrace. I just hope they catch the person who did it."

The £760,000 sculpture was unveiled at Morton Park in 1997 and represents Darlington's history as the birthplace of the railways.

It caused controversy at the time, with critics claiming it was a waste of money and a monstrous white elephant.

A spokesman for Darlington Borough Council said: "It's disappointing that yobs can show so little respect to a nationally-recognised work of art, to the skill of the local craftsmen who built it and to the thousands of people who pass by each day and enjoy it."

A spokesman for Morrison supermarket, which owns the train, said: "We have a team on-site removing the graffiti."