At 4.30 on Sunday afternoon the church organist came in to the church to find deep gouges across the floor of the altar, which extended along one of the aisles towards the side exit.
After further inspection, he saw that the rubber tyre had come off one of the wheelchairs kept in the church.
Churchwarden Sarah Bamford suspects that a group of youngsters had been playing in the church that afternoon, pushing each other around on the wheelchair, which belongs to the church, and tipping it on its side.
As its tyre broke off, the revealed metal wheel carved into the hardwood flooring.
‘This is abuse of a public building,’ said Mrs Bamford.
‘It makes me feel sick.
‘It will take so long to put right, and will be so expensive.
‘It makes me doubly sick because they’ve defaced a public wheelchair, which are used frequently by members of the congregation and visitors, and we’ve now got to pay to get that repaired.
‘I’m in no doubt that it was a group of about five or six young kids – who the organist saw leaving – fooling around with the wheelchair.
‘I’m absolutely appalled.
‘It’s not just abuse of the building, it’s an abuse of people as well.
‘They’ve had no respect at all for the congregation and members of the public.
‘This church is open to everybody. It’s not our property, it belongs to the Town. Behaviour like this will not be tolerated, we’ve been in touch with the police and we will prosecute. I feel that strongly.’
Police are investigating the incident and ask anyone who might have further information, or who witnessed anything suspicious between the hours of 1pm and 4.30pm on Sunday, to contact PC146 Moore on 222 222, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.