POLICE and politicians have spoken of their anger after bricks were thrown at officers as they investigated a suspected arson.

Police were called to the TK Maxx car park, off Church Street, Burnley, by firefighters who had suspicions that a Black Peugeot 308 had been deliberately set alight.

When officer arrived at the scene at around 1.30am today, a group of people started throwing bricks from the nearby canal towpath.

Inspector Kim De Curtis said: “We get this quite a lot in the silly season as historically people throw fireworks at police.

“It makes it harder to deal with the incident and the officers have had to go off to try to catch them and they are not working on the incident they were actually there for. They may be losing lines of inquiry.”

Insp De Curtis added: “The fire brigade had called us about it at 1.40am to say that the car was too hot to recover.

“The owner of the car had parked it up at 1am when they went to see a friend who lived nearby and it was locked up.

“They said that they did not know why anyone would want to do this.

“It is believed the fire started in the rear of the vehicle and the phone call to report it had been anonymous.

“We are currently investigating the cause of the fire.”

Burnley Fire Station crew manager Lee Pickup said: “When we arrived the car was well-alight and looked as if it had been going for a little while.

“There is an investigation with the police and they will be looking at the CCTV as there are some cameras 50 metres away from where it happened.

“The car was totally destroyed and we were there for half an hour putting the fire out.

“It is being treated as suspicious.

“No-one was hurt in the incident.”

Anyone with information can call police on 101, quoting the reference number 137 of October 20.