Line of the times

Artist Dudley Heslop failed yesterday in a High Court bid to have an Underground station manager prosecuted over graffiti scrawled on a poster of supermodel Naomi Campbell advertising underwear.

Mr Heslop claimed the scrawl - 'I've been sitting here for six months in my underwear and my bum smells - was indecent, but Lord Justice Kennedy and Mr Justice Alliott agreed with a magistrate who had ruled it was 'in extremely bad taste but not indecent.

They rejected Mr Heslop's challenge to the magistrate's refusal to issue a summons against Stockwell Underground manager Mike Oleman for permitting display of indecent material.

Mr Heslop, of Canterbury Crescent, Brixton, told the court: 'We are not talking about a lavatory wall. We are talking about an Underground station and a great many people using it every day.

He claimed his requests for the words to be removed had been ignored.