10:58am Thursday 10th June 2010
By Edmund Tobin
VANDALS have wreaked havoc at a scout group's cabin less than a week after it was installed.
Waltham Abbey Scout Group had only just put the wooden cabin in the grounds of Elphwood Hall, at Cornmill Car Park, when thugs entered and smashed every light bulb in it.
They then came back the next day and destroyed a partition wall in the cabin before attempting to set the building alight.
Scout leader Ken Stanger said: “They brought in wood from the forest and tried to set the plaster board alight but fortunately it doesn't burn.
“The cabin's there for extra meetings because we are growing as a group. They have made a complete mess of it. We won't be able to use it for a couple of weeks.
“I feel sorry for the kids who have broken in. Because they can't create anything the only thing they can do is destroy. They must have quite sad lives.
“I think it was just an opportunity. They wandered into the grounds, saw the new cabin and wanted to set it on fire.”
As well as repairing the £500 of damage caused to the building, the scout group is now having to pay £1,000 to fit security measures including metal grills across the windows and doors.
Mr Stanger said: “We'd only had it less than a week. We hadn't had the opportunity to get it insured.
If necessary we might have to build a new wall. It's sad but there probably only two or three individuals in the whole area who did it.”
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