Artist, 81, known as 'The Original Banksy': jailed for 4-years for stalking former model & ex-girlfriend

A reader, Kevin Brenan, asked NV to follow up on the sentencing of the octinarian artist Walter Kershaw and he says:

'I thought the sentence was harsh for a man of 81. I hope he appeals it.

'I also hope he is in an open prison rather than Strangeways.

'I am sure he would like to hear from you.

'I always thought his work was very original.

'It may help to find out where he is. Hopefully within travelling distance.

'Its difficult when you get in the grip of an obsession. You can see the danger to yourself.'

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As a consequence of Kevin's e-mail above N.V. contacted a retired prison officer and he suggested we talk to Walter's solicitor to try to get a request for a visit, but Walter seems not to have used a local firm of solicitors and it has not yet been possible to get hold of them. We would agree that the setence seems harsh, but we didn't attend the trial. We were reassured that in recent times owing to the tendency of courts to extend sentences there had been an increase in the prison population of elderly jail-birds and this had led to the need fot the provision of special facilies for older people. Another worry we have is that the complainants in this case tend to repeat the diffficulties they have in moving around the town were they all live without bumping into Walter, and they continually say they are forced to trudge across muddy fields and spend a fortune on taxi fares in order to avoid meeting him in the village of Littleborough near Rochdale. When some time ago I did discuss this difficulty with Walter he pointed out that Littleborough was a small place and it was hard to avoid bumping into local people. As his solicitor has argued in his defence Walter: 'There is no offer of violence and no physical intimidation.'

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For the benefit of our readers we reproduce below a report by Jacob Thorburn for the Mailonline published on 30 April 2021:

A popular British painter has been jailed for four years after a 'predatory stalking campaign' dating back to 2008.

Walter Kershaw, 81, who was dubbed Britain's 'original Banksy', repeatedly hounded Catherine Mitchell, 51, after their affair ended in 2007.

Rochdale-born Kershaw conducted a 'predatory' stalking campaign lasting 13 years, which included pursuing his ex-lover around their hometown and telling her she was beautiful.

The painter would also send life model Mitchell love letters and romantic cards and would drive slowly passed her home blowing kisses at her.

Despite Mitchell's best efforts, which included taking taxis around town and using muddy fields at the back of her home, she could not avoid her prolific stalker.

Kershaw was jailed for four years at Minshull Street Crown Court after admitting to breaching his restraining order and stalking.

The couple's relationship began in 2006, after former life model Mitchell asked 'unpredictable and controlling' Kershaw to paint her portrait.

The following year she broke up with Kershaw after she was hit by a motorbike and suffered life-threatening brain and leg injuries in a collision outside his gallery.

But Kershaw - who once counted George Best and Bob Monkhouse as friends - continued pursuing Miss Mitchell around the town and put an oil portrait in the front window of his art gallery in Littleborough, Greater Manchester.

The court heard how he would drive past Miss Mitchell's home on a regular basis, and would blow kisses towards her and also sent her love letters and cards.

He began to attend church where she and her mother were members of the congregation and appear regularly in their local supermarket.

When Miss Mitchell moved out of her mother's house into her own place, he would turn up on her doorstep uninvited and ask to take her out.

Police issued Miss Mitchell with a hand-held panic alarm and she used it when he turned up outside the house.

Eventually in January 2009 he was spoken to by police and warned not to contact her and in the following year Kershaw was instructed not to contact Miss Mitchell and her mother.

In 2013, the father of two was ordered to pay the two women compensation after he approached Ms Mitchell as she was sat in her car but in 2015 was given a suspended sentence for hounding her again.

He was eventually jailed for 26 weeks in 2017 after he approached Ms Mitchell at a Co-Op supermarket and tried to strike up a conversation with her saying: 'You've got a new cat and so have I.

'I think about you all the time. Let's pick up where we left off'.

But after being freed, Kershaw accosted her again over the Christmas period of 2018 when she was shopping in the town and told her: 'I adore you and I spent every day in prison thinking about you and I never meant any harm'.

The following year he was sentenced 20 weeks, suspended for 12 months and banned from contacting her for life, but in 2020 he twice flouted the order and was given another 12 weeks jail suspended for two years.

The latest incidents took place between July and August last year, just ten days after the suspended sentence was imposed.

In a statement to police Miss Mitchell who called Kershaw 'the Devil man' said she was so terrified of the artist she had to quit her home and subsequently spent £65,000 building an extension at the home of her mother Marjorie, 77, so she could move in with her.

Ms Mitchell said: 'Walter Kershaw has continued to stalk us relentless to the present day.

'The very fact he has dismissed the various restraining orders we have against him as mere folly is a sure sign that he only lives by his own rules in a self-centred untouchable world where the law is irrelevant.

'The last time he was sent to prison we felt free and it felt like a release from the perpetual panic and anguish which has sadly become a customary aspect of our lives.

'When he was in jail, no longer was it necessary to take expensive taxis or cross a muddy field as avoidance strategies.

'We desire to live our lives without the continuous worry for this arrogant, predatory person who has affected out peaceful lives for over a decade with his narcissistic attitude and behaviour.

'His behaviour is obsessive distressing, disturbing and alarming and we simply do not know where or when we will encounter him next.'

Kershaw had shot to fame in the 70s with his large-scale murals on houses and later was dubbed 'the Original Banksy' with his work displayed as far afield as Sao Paolo in Brazil.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Anthony Morris said: 'There does not seem to be anything done that is intentionally malicious.

'There is no offer of violence and no physical intimidation. From his point of view, he was trying to build bridges and was not consciously aware of the fact the victim was suffering from psychological distress.

'He lived in the hope that he could break down barriers and build a friendship again.'

But sentencing Judge Mark Savill told Kershaw: 'It is extremely sad to see a gentleman with a great skill as an artist before the court for such serious matters.

'Catherine was doing what any normal citizen should be allowed to do and yet you have caused very serious harm or distress.

'Your age does not justify your appalling behaviour in this case.

'Two women have had to suffer with their lives blighted and ruined by your selfish behaviour.

'The time has come where you must receive the message from this court that this behaviour cannot continue.'

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'Passion Slave' Painter Pays Price!

Trail Blazing Northern Banksy meets Bury Magistrates

 

WALTER Kershaw, the Rochdale artist who was first to start the art of 'Banksy style' street graffiti in the 1960s, clearly doesn't know when to stop; because he told Bury magistates' court this month that he was so 'smitten' by a former lover that he couldn't give her up, and that he believed in the English adage 'never give up on love'.   He recently said on a Radio Four that he didn't have the 'wit' of the Banksy, and the modern street artists with their minimalist endeavours.  Indeed not, Walter had a taste for the grand canvass:  big romantic renderings on house-ends, mill walls and brick shit-houses were more Mr. Kershaw's style.  His inspiration seems to have been the Italian muralists of southern Europe, where he once romantically rode a bike over the alps to Florence to go to his sister's wedding.

 

But you've got to take account of where you live, and Rochdale is not Florence or Verona or even Benedorm.  People up here don't take kindly to folk, especially men, who show their passionate side - being 'smitten' in a place like Rochdale is almost a sin.  'Don't be being daft!', they would say up here in a kind of Grace Field's accent.

 

Walter can't complain, he has had repeated warnings from the police, but still he would loiter about outside their local church, or trail them round the supermarket.  He had had a relationship with the lass Catherine Mitchell for almost two years, but this had ended after a serious accident some years ago which left Catherine with brain and leg injuries.  They had first met when Walter painted her, at her request, in 2007.

 

In court Mr. Kershaw admitted to bombarding Catherine with unwanted attention, gifts and phone calls.  He was given a restraining order to stop him from making any contact with Catherine or her mother or going to their addresses.  Furthermore, he must not display any art, portraits, drawings or photos of them in public.

 

He was given a community order and must pay Catherine and her mum £250 each in compensation as well as £85 costs.

 

Shakespeare had a character say in one of his plays:  'Be not passion slave'.  Seventy-three-year-old Walter, who is still hard at work outdoors painting murals, and once illustrated a front cover of an issue of Northern Voices (see picture), said:  'I would like to thank those who have inundated me with messages and calls of support.'

 

 



Stuart Dawson: 'Superlative Northern Artist' Dies

Born at Birch Hill Hospital 30th, June 1957, Died 1st, August 2013

STUART Dawson, the 56-year-old artist from Littleborough near Rochdale who local painter Walter Kershaw described as a 'superlative artist', died of an inoperable brain cancer on the 1st, August. Only last month Walter, who was opening an exhibition at Number Ten Gallery in Rochdale, told me of his condition. Earlier this year Mr. Kershaw had recommended that Northern Voices interview Stuart Dawson as the most promising local artist in the North West of England. Now sadly that will never happen.

Stuart had been part of a dynamic duo with Walter Kershaw in his journeys on a motor bike around Lancashire in the 1970s and 80s painting huge murals on the sides of derelict buildings and terraces. Walter told the Rochdale Observer: 'I have always been a great fan of Stuart's work.  He was a superlative artist and was in my opinion the best watercolour artist in the area by far.'

Following his graduation at Bradford College in 1978 and the Royal College of Art in 1983, Stuart held exhibitions of his work in London at the Royal Academy, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and at the Espace Vega in Paris. He has left a huge quantity of his paintings at Dean Clough Gallery in Halifax.

Stuart Dawson's funeral service was held at Littleborough Parish Church on Monday 12th, August.
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Rochdale Artist praises 'Northern Voices'

In the 70s, Kershaw's work was dotted all around Lancashire mill towns – there was the 'inside-out house' in his home town of Rochdale, which Hodkinson remembers very clearly.  'It just seemed normal to me.  When you're a kid, you don't deconstruct these things.  But when you're older, you realise it wasn't normal at all.'

THIS morning, just before Radio Four broadcast his program on what they called the 'Godfather of Guerrilla Artists', Walter Kershaw thanked Northern Voices for renewing his subscription to what he described as 'an excellent magazine'.  Shortly after this John Walker, the former editor of RAP (The Rochdale Alternative Paper) now living in London, e-mailed us to say: 

'Good programme on Walter on Radio 4 this a.m., 11.30.  Very evocative of Rochdale in 70's, but not totally nostalgic!!  Catch it on the I-player, if you can.  Trust all is well'  - John.

When Northern Voices spoke to 71-year-old Walter he was excited and anticipating the program.  His mother came from down South, but his Dad came from Blackburn and was a cotton operative.  He took the interviewer Mark Hodkinson into his spare bedroom and showed him his sculpture of 'Women's Liberation Front', and said:  'I'm not anti-social - it's just I haven't time to be social'.  Another commentator said Walter 'would talk some girl into taking her clothes off' so he could paint her in the nude and one woman said:  'Walter has spent too much time with women, he had no brother and was partly brought up with elderly aunts'. 
This, if true, is rather similar to George Orwell who was brought up mostly by his mother and other female relatives, while his father was in India.  In fact, I suspect that whatever the feminists say, most lads in the North are brought up listening to their mothers, grandmothers and aunts.  These female relatives,  in my experience, spend a lot of their time running their menfolk down, while we listen-in as young innocent onlookers to men being portrayed as rather disreputable specimen's of the human race.  This may be why men, when they grow up are like they are - the products of women who spend their days in this way.

A speaker, comparing Walter to Banksy, said that in a way Walter's work painting the gable-ends of terraced houses though not overtly political in a crude sense, were none-the-less, at the time, political gestures against the civil servants and the bureaucratic system.
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