A FURIOUS councillor has lashed out at vandals who toppled a war memorial.

The 10ft stone memorial in Billington was overturned in the early hours of Saturday by a gang of youths.

Billington councillor Alan Oldham, of Grafton Street, claims the village is a constant target for yobs returning from nights out.

He said: "Someone who lives near the monument told me he was woken up in the middle of the night by an enormous crash. He looked out of the window and he saw four youths running away. They had obviously pushed it over on purpose.

"We are always having problems like this in Billington with windows being smashed and general mindless vandalism."

Councillor Oldham, who sits on Ribble Valley council and Billington Parish Council, said: "It is absolutely disgusting that someone could do this to the war memorial.

"The memorial is there to honour the people of this village who fought in two world wars . These mindless yobs live in a free society thanks to the efforts of those people and it is sickening to think they can just come along and do something like this."

Picture: Parish councillor Carl Ross (left), standard-bearer for Langho and Billington Royal British Legion and a parish councillor, and former marine Coun Brian Beniston survey the damage