Police are continuing their hunt for a figure in black seen defacing Holocaust Memorial Day posters with the words “liars” and “killer” in CCTV footage.

Newham Recorder: The figure looks around before vandalising the posterThe figure looks around before vandalising the poster (Image: Archant)

Detectives are trying to track down the culprit after four posters were found to have been vandalised in what the Met has described as “racially aggravated” attacks across the borough last week.

The posters are promoting Newham Council’s Holocaust Memorial Day event on Tuesday, January 27, marking 70 years since the liberation of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Newham mayor Sir Robin Wales described the anti-Semitic graffiti as a “despicable and cowardly hate crime”, adding it represented an “assault on the values of decency and mutual respect which the vast majority of us share”.

Borough commander Tony Nash also criticised the attacks, saying: “These offences are not only disgusting but an attack on all of our communities in an attempt to create division where there is unity.”

The words “liars” and “killer” were daubed in red paint on three posters – two in High Street, Stratford, and one in West Ham Lane near Stratford Park – last week, with a fourth defaced on Friday in Balaam Street, Plaistow.

Members of Newham’s Jewish community have said they are afraid following the incidents.

Speaking to the Recorder, Judith Garfield, a practising Jew who is directing a project tracing her faith’s history in the East End as part of her role as executive director of Eastside Community Heritage, said Jewish people are now “a lot more fearful of working with other communities” as a result of the attacks.

The graffiti has since been removed and Newham Council has promised to carefully monitor all advertising boards to avoid further vandalism.

Anyone with information relating to the crimes should contact police on 101.