A CITY bar owner believes one of his toilet seats was smashed by a foiled drug user during celebrations after Cheltenham Festival.

Matt Pugh, owner of The Firefly in Lowesmoor, Worcester, was called by his cleaner on Wednesday morning (March 13) and told the cistern lid had been used to smash a toilet.

The 37-year-old said his bar had been filled on Tuesday night, he assumes with people who had got the last train from the races to Shrub Hill.

“We’re going to look at the CCTV – it would have been the last person who went into the toilet,” he said.

“If anyone else had gone into the toilet they would have told staff the toilet’s been smashed.

“There was a lot of people who came in on the last train to Shrub Hill. There were lots of people in here I’d never seen before. The next day we’ve come in to a smashed-up toilet.”

Mr Pugh said he puts different deterrents on the toilets to prevent people taking drugs off them, including Vaseline and black safety tape.

He believes the culprit had realised too late and therefore lost his drugs and lashed out “in protest”.

“Somebody tried to do something and has been stopped from doing it, they’ve lost their stuff and smashed the toilet in anger,” he said.

“It doesn’t take a detective to think that’s what’s happened.”

He said the cistern lid is “six-foot in the air”, so would be difficult to get at and unlikely to be just a random act of vandalism.

An anti-drugs sign was in the toilet and “that was ripped off the wall” as well, he said.

“I’m just assuming all this, but it’s not hard to piece it together.”

Mr Pugh estimated it would cost about £100 to replace the toilet but said “it’s not so much about that”.

“I’m working hard, I didn’t need that when the cleaner called me this morning,” he added.