Vandals target disabled pensioner's home (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Vandals target disabled pensioner's home

VANDALS have repeatedly targeted a disabled man's Cirencester ground floor flat during recent weeks.

Roland Hughes, who is 76 and suffers from prostate cancer and a serious heart condition, lives in The Waterloo with his wife, Christine.

On Easter Sunday, their ground floor flat was vandalised for the third weekend in a row when a brick was thrown against a window frame.

Last Sunday the same window was smashed, while the couple have also had ongoing trouble with people throwing eggs and urinating outside the property.

Smashed bottles outside their front door are another frequent hazard. Christine, 42, said: "We can't put up with it anymore. I've had enough and I want to move. Why do these vandals have to pick on us?

"I was at bingo last Sunday when they smashed the window, but my husband and our grandchildren were here - including a new born baby. It was very scary for them and it has been scary for our neighbours upstairs as well.

"I have diabetes like my husband and this is making me very ill. I have to watch him and you can't be ill at the same time - this is really getting me down."

Christine says she would like to see more security in the housing estates next to the Abbey Grounds.

She also believes the reason why people are urinating outside her flat during evenings on the weekend is because they are drunk.

But in the mean time she has been bidding on HomeView, the affordable homes register set up by Cotswold District Council and Fosseway Housing Association.

She added: "We have to wait for a suitable place and it might take some time because of my husband's disability - we need things like walk-in showers."

Police officers have made no arrests yet but the Abbey Grounds has recently been included in a new initiative clamping down on alfresco drinking.

Soon officers in Cirencester will have the power to arrest anyone boozing in the no-alcohol zones.

Police spokesman Matt Ford said: "Obviously this is a very disturbing state of affairs for the victim.

"An officer has been allocated to investigate the matter."