Police will set up hidden cameras across Brighton in a crackdown on graffiti 'taggers' who cost traders hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Officers have teamed up with the council and youth and business groups to combat the vandals with a new anti-graffiti strategy.

It is designed to stop louts like Bouncing Doughnut - featured on This Is Brighton & Hove yesterday.

The vandal, whose nickname comes from his distinctive tag, was captured on a hidden camera.

Police have already caught eight well-known graffiti sprayers and are pledging to prosecute 12 more by the end of summer.

Databases of the taggers and their signatures are being set up and ten operations will be carried at graffiti hotspots out by September.

The City Centre Business Forum hopes to help traders sue offenders to recover the cost of damage to their properties.

Tony Mernagh, city centre manager, said it was important to "de-romanticise" graffiti.

Research by the forum showed the typical tagger was male, white, middle class, intelligent, aged 14 to 30 and still lived with his mum.

Mr Mernagh said: "Graffiti affects the quality of life of the vast majority of people. It gives them a feeling of insecurity and the feeling that people here don't care about where they live.

"There is absolutely no talent in tagging. It is just not clever and there is a case for telling these people: Get a life."

Seventy-six per cent of city centre businesses which took part in a survey had been hit by taggers and North Laine was the worst affected area.

The Youth Offending Team has agreed to make young criminals clean off graffiti there as part of their punishment.