Jessica Ennis's gold postbox repaired after being vandalised

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A postbox that was painted gold in Jessica Ennis's home city to celebrate her Olympic heptathlon triumph has been repainted after being vandalised.

Graffiti was daubed on the box in Barker's Pool in Sheffield city centre, which has already become a tourist attraction, within 24 hours of it being painted.

Royal Mail said it did not know what the graffiti said as an engineer had repaired the damage very quickly as "a point of pride".

Crowds gathered in the city centre on Sunday to watch the first gold coat being applied, the day after Ennis won gold in the heptathlon. The box outside the City Hall is overlooked by a giant 80ft poster of the Olympian on the front of the John Lewis building.

It has since become a tourist attraction, with one man reportedly travelling all the way from London to see it.

On Wednesday families were posing for photographs next to the newly repainted box, and shoppers and city workers were stopping to admire it. People taking pictures said they were disappointed by the vandalism but not surprised.

Passer-by Jenny Cotton said: "I think that's humanity, unfortunately. It's regrettable but I'm afraid from time to time it happens."

Student Stuart Collier, 20, said the vandalism was probably the result of the box's location. "It's on the main pub run round here and you're going to get idiots doing this kind of thing when they're tanked up. Too many drunk loons around of a night."