Around 50 cars keyed in spate of vandalism in Cornish town
Police are investigating after around 50 cars were damaged in a spate of vandalism in a Cornish town.People living in Liskeard say the incident has frightened some of the town’s elderly population.A large number of cars across the town were badly keyed in the early hours of Monday 23 November. Some had words scratched into the bonnets such as ‘paedo devil’ and ‘it’s all your fault’.
There were also reports of wing mirrors being broken and street signs knocked over. One car also had paint thrown over it.
The cost of repairing all the damage will run into thousands of pounds.
Adam Marchewski, who lives in Carlton Way, has only had his car for a month and it has been scratched from front to back.
He said: "I reckon it’s about £2,000 worth of damage. My neighbour is a taxi driver and he’s had about £3,000 damage.
"Another neighbour has a brand new BMW and four panels have been keyed.”
A resident of Caradon Heights, who preferred not to be named, sustained massive scratches to his car, which he only bought eight weeks ago.He said: “Clearly somebody does not care about other people’s belongings. These cars belong to hard-working families. It’s coming up to Christmas and it has been a difficult year anyway – people can’t afford this sort of thing. It’s just not right.“A lot of the people in my street are aged 70 and over. This has put a lot of fear into elderly people living on their own. It’s horrible.”
Another Liskeard resident said his neighbour in Pendragon Close called 999 at 3.58am, after seeing a tall man in a lumberjack shirt trying to open car door handles in the area. Two minutes later he heard four loud thumps on his door.
The resident and his wife had a Range Rover and Volvo damaged in the attacks. He said: “I have now installed CCTV cameras at a cost of £600 to cover mine and my neighbours’ cars.”He questions whether the incident should be investigated as a hate crime rather than criminal damage due to some of the phrases scratched into the cars.Police would like to hear from anyone with CCTV footage from the night of Sunday, 22 November through to Monday, 23 November following the criminal damage to cars and vans parked in Caradon Heights, Carlton Way and Clover Drive.
A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesperson said: “We received a report of a male trying car handles in Pendragon Close, Liskeard, at 4am on Monday, 23 November.“Two double-crewed units were dispatched to the scene and a search of the area was conducted. Nobody was located.”
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