IT WAS a unique memorial created in honour of an Andover teenager.

When friends and family wrote messages of condolence and laid flowers for popular Jamie ‘Dusty’ Leach at a utility cabinet just yards from his former home, it became an unlikely shrine to celebrate his life.

But now his nearest and dearest are in mourning once again after the moving tributes were painted over by council chiefs.

As previously reported by the Advertiser, tragedy struck the community in February last year when the 18-year-old was found dead in his room at the hostel in Junction Road.

An inquest heard how Jamie was found hanged – just one week after splitting up with his girlfriend.

Tributes poured in for the bricklayer on social media, before the utility cabinet situated in an alleyway just yards from his home was covered in more messages and flowers.

Heartbroken friends and family have now hit out at Test Valley Borough Council bosses after they painted over the poignant memorial.

One friend, Leia Thomas, has called on the council to apologise.

She added: “The box has provided myself and so many others with somewhere to remember him.

“There are absolutely no circumstances in which this being painted over is acceptable.

“It was not riddled with profanities or obscenities. There was no need for it to be removed.

“Does the council not recognise that we have lost enough already?”

A spokesman for Test Valley Borough Council said: “We understand that it is still very difficult for those who loved and cared for Jamie Leach, including all those who wrote tributes to him on the utility cabinet following his tragic death in February 2013.

“We have a responsibility to ensure that utility cabinets and other street furniture are maintained and re-painted if marked with unauthorised writing.”