Vandals in major wrecking spree in Middleton

Two wreckers are believed to have been behind the smashing of 14 windows in the Jubilee Hall on April 26 and 27.

They also damaged the front door of the nearby 1st Middleton-on-Sea Scout Group and a fair advertising poster at St Nicholas Church.

The extensive damage to the hall left volunteers having to clear up the smashed double glazed windows to enable two children's parties to go ahead.

Hall management committee booking secretary Joyce Weston said: "I've been on the committee for 30 years and the hall has never been vandalised like this before.

"It is just wanton damage and it's very disheartening. We spend all our time fundraising to improve the hall and then we have to spend the money on repairing damage like this."

She believed it could cost 100 a window to replace the damaged sections.

An emergency meeting of the management committee is set to be called to discuss the hall's future.

Mrs Weston said it was likely the committee's members would decide that grilles or shutters should be installed over the windows.

"We don't want to do that because it makes the building look like a fortress," she stated.

"It also makes it darker inside for everyone who uses it. But we just can't go on suffering vandalism like this and paying for the repairs."

Two young people are believed to have been responsible for causing the damage.

A nearby resident has told Mrs Weston about seeing them around the hall, on Shrubbs Field off Elmer Road, at 5.25am on Sunday, April 27.

They were screaming and shouting as they smashed the windows with what police think was a hammer or a rock.

The resident saw them walk across the recreation ground to the church where they attacked the banner.

The affected windows made up nearly half the 36 in the single storey hall. All of them face the field.

Many are in the small hall which now has no natural daylight apart from a door on to the field because all the windows have been temporarily boarded up. Some of the windows had both layers of glass broken by the ferocity of the blows.

One or two of the window frames were also damaged in the sustained attack.