People living near Great Malvern Cemetery are being urged to take a stand against vandalism after several trees were cut down.

Fir, cedar and crab apple trees were sawn through last Thursday night, April 26, causing damage estimated at £300.

Malvern Town Council's operations supervisor Sarah Whyman, who looks after the cemetery, discovered the damage to the trees near the Madresfield Road end of the cemetery.

She said people living just yards away had told her there were children making noise every night, but no-one had called the police.

"If people would just ring the police . . . but they don't do anything about it," she said.

"The main problem these days is people are scared of retaliation, but unless the police know there's a problem here they've got no reason to come."

Ms Whyman said the damage was unusual in that it appeared that quite a lot of work had gone into cutting the trees down.

"They've obviously spent a bit of time on it. It's as bad as desecrating graves as far as I'm concerned. I just can't understand it, what pleasure did they get out of it?"

Town clerk Richard Chapman said: "It's disappointing when vandalism of this kind happens after so much hard work has been put into the maintenance of the cemetery by the town council's operation team."

A police spokesman said: "There doesn't appear to be any specific motive but we're keen to hear from anyone who believes they know the reason for it or who saw anything."