My rhetorical question was to focus your attention on what I was saying not what I wasn't.

What you seem not to understand is that I actually don't care a jot for my paintwork. What I do care about is somebody damaging something that isn't theirs, knowing that they did so and just pissing off into the sunset. I would have been just as cross had the paintwork not been mine, but been somebody else's. It's not the paintwork itself that matters it is the wider implications of the actions taken and decisions made.

The person who caused the damage would quite justly be just as upset if I or somebody else did similar to them. That sort of behaviour is bad. It teaches kids that breaking things is OK. It teaches them that running away from your responsibilities is OK. It could ultimately help to teach them that knocking somebody off their bike and sodding off is OK. All of those things are bad and wrong and people who do them need their ways correcting, whether that is through a good shouting at by their parents, or a fine or a custodial sentence, or whatever.