A mother has hit out at vandals who scrawled offensive images and homophobic slurs on equipment at a children’s play park.
Sammy Bond was at the Beccles common park with her four-year-old daughter, Neave, when she noticed the lewd drawings and discriminatory language on the slide, park bench, table and trees.
“We live around the corner and always go there to take our dog for a walk. My daughter loves that park.
“It has just been ruined by some inconsiderate person,” the 23-year-old said.
“I am absolutely disgusted at what I found on the new bench, slide and tree. It is somewhere nice for the children to go and this is what happens.
“It seems like Beccles is now becoming a new spot for vandalism,” Miss Bond said.
After seeing the graffiti, she said her daughter asked what the words and images meant.
“It’s just awful for children,” she said.
Within an hour of the vandalism being reported, parents from the community rallied together to scrub the park clean.
Beccles mayor Elfrede Brambley-Crawshaw stressed the community are not pointing the finger at all young people, and said “this kind of thing does not happen in Beccles”.
“I am happy to go on the record and say I was a teenager once, and I did silly things.
“One of the reasons I got down there so quickly - which I would anyway, but it was because of the kind of things that were on there which were discriminatory.
“The words were very homophobic and that is not tolerated in Beccles.
”The message I would give is if you need a creative outlet, contact us because we will find it for you,” she said.
The park vandalism comes after a number of stores were taken to with black paint including charity store, Nanny Julies, which had opened the day before.
At the time, Jade Dickerson said: “We have worked really hard to set up for my mum who passed away.
“We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us, but just so upset that someone has done this as this is so close to our heart.”
The vandalism at the children’s play park was not reported to police.
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