UPDATED DECEMBER 12: The Phantom Crapper “has been identified and dealt with” by Dorset Police. That’s all I know at the moment.
The police said they were determined to catch him – and they have.
Bridport police said that the culprit was a 43 year-old local man.
VILLAGERS in West Milton near Bridport are stepping carefully after a spate of mystery defecations.
An unknown person has been relieving themselves in gateways and on paths, leaving offerings littered with used toilet paper.
The nusiance behaviour seems calculated to attract attention.
Dorset Police have been informed.
UPDATED: The Phantom Crapper struck again between about 7am and 8.2oam on Monday, November 8, in a gateway on the road going east from West Milton out past Corfe Farm. Three lots of fresh loo paper marked the spot.
I’ve been asked if the turd man could – “gruesome thought” – actually be a woman. My informants say No, definitely not.
I’ve also been told that Bridport had a phantom crapper about three or four years ago. The police tried hard to catch this person, but did not succeed. Could there be a connection?
UPDATED AGAIN: ”He’s persistent, the crapper,” so I’ve just been told. Same lane, different gateway, the usual signs appearing between about 7am and 8am (Tuesday, November 9).
There’s been talk locally about whether the Phantom could be someone who’s walking out from West Milton, or a man driving around in a car.
“This confirms me in my opinion,” says today’s informant, “that’s it’s someone in a car.
“Because, it started raining from about seven o’clock this morning, and you wouldn’t go out walking in the rain to do that.
“Whereas if you go in a car you can make a quick getaway after the dirty deed is done.”
I’d been wondering myself whether it could be a homeless person, as Lindy has suggested in a comment below, but if the above line of reasoning about a car is right, then you’d have to say it probably isn’t someone in need of shelter and an indoor toilet.
UPDATED NOVEMBER 15: Loo paper festooned in the usual second gateway. ”I’m convinced it’s someone on their way to work, because it always happens between about 7 and 8 o’clock in the morning,” says today’s Disgusted of Dorset.
UPDATED NOVEMBER 17: Bad weather seems to have forestalled any further incidents. “He’s an amateur, that Crapper. He doesn’t like the wind up his backside,” I’m told.
UPDATED NOVEMBER 19: He’s back again. The usual signs.
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Are you sure that the good people of West Milton are really stepping carefully to avoid the offending deposits? It seems to me that they are only going through the motions.
Why, oh why, don’t the police use tracker dogs? Obviously Alsatians would be no good in this case. No, this is a job for a highly-trained Shih Tzu. Somewhere in the bowels of Bridport Police Station there must be a few leads as to the previous culprit or did investigative opinions fall between two stools? I know there were some leads but blundering passers by may well have wrecked ‘em. I know it must be hard for the residents of West Milton but I am afraid that they will have to just turn the other cheek for the time being.
I never have been one to spoil The Red Bladder’s rather juvenile ideas of humour but he obviously forgets, well at his age it’s very easy, that I know as well as does how this little prank works. We knew it as students nearly 50 years ago and I, for one, am amazed that there is a single soul in this country who has not come across it before. I’m sure the police know, in fact I bet that it’s one of the first japes they learn about in coppers’ school. Come on Bladder, stop milking it for your silly puns and explain all.
Perhaps this person is homeless and needs help. There is very little help for the homeless in Dorset I believe.
Lindy, there may be little help for the homeless but there are public toilets.