A Black Country war memorial thought to have been vandalised was actually being spruced up in time for a remembrance service, it was revealed today.

Paint was found to have been sprayed over every side of the monument in Victoria Park, Tipton, blocking out the inscription, and was reported as vandalism to Sandwell Council. But park staff had ordered a spruce up of the cenotaph.

And the undercoat they had painted onto the memorial ended up getting scrubbed clean by council workers.

The staff did this under the impression it was the work of yobs.

The black paint had been daubed over the memorial so gold letters could be regilded ahead of next Sunday’s remembrance day service.

Poppy seller Malcolm Steventon, 67, who served with the Territorial Army Staffs Armoury, saw the council workers cleaning up the cenotaph on Friday morning but noticed it had been repainted later that afternoon and reported it to the council’s graffiti team.

He said today: “We got a phone call on Saturday evening at the British Legion from the park warden to say they have painted it because they were getting the letters regilded, but the man who authorised it went off on holiday and didn’t tell anyone.

“It’s pretty silly really, it caused a lot of hard feelings when we thought people had vandalised it. I suppose because he knew what was happening, he just assumed everyone else did too.”

Tipton councillor Ian Jones had begun to arrange for a Domehawk camera to be installed to catch the supposed culprits, and was working with fellow Tipton councillors to establish a contingency plan to make sure the vandals did not strike again next weekend in a bid to ruin the service.

He said: “There’s definitely been a problem with communication here.

“It seems the people who organised it didn’t tell anyone else what they were doing and when the public saw it covered in black paint they were rightly shocked.

“Actually the opposite of what we thought happened, happened, they were trying to make it look better.”

The council’s cabinet member for culture and leisure Councillor Linda Horton said: “We apologise for any distress caused to the British Legion and the public.”