Action to take down unsafe gravestones in Holt cemetery was necessary to prevent the risk of death or injury according to the town's mayor

Duncan Baker was speaking after about 50 gravestones were laid down because of serious safety fears over their condition.

Police initially thought the gravestones in the Cley Road cemetery had been vandalised branding the action: 'an act of disgraceful criminal damage.'

A large number stones were found to be severely loose with the potential to cause severe or fatal injury following a routine inspection last month.

Mr Baker said the death of eight-year-old Ciaran Williamson, who was crushed to death by a falling headstone in a Glasgow cemetery, showed how important it was to act.

He added: 'A child of eight had a stone topple on him and kill him. This is a real problem, so real it was in the papers. I could not have lived with myself if we had done nothing and someone had been injured.'

Mr Baker told a Holt Town Council meeting on Monday that 'topple testing' was continuing at the cemetery, but had not found the same level of problems with other headstones.