SECURITY guards are to patrol cemeteries in Hyndburn after a spate of vandalism and what police describe as a "racist attack" on gravestones.

Hyndburn Council has recruited a team of security guards to patrol three graveyards, including the main site off Burnley Road, Accrington, where two headstones were pushed over and another smashed in half on Sunday.

Police said the attack, in the Muslim section of cemetery, was "fuelled by narrow-minded prejudice and bigotry."

A graveyard in Dill Hall, Church, and another in Great Harwood will also be guarded following thefts of flowers from headstones and vandalism in a garden on remembrance.

Today John Davey, assistant head of environmental health at Hyndburn Council, said: "We have employed a security firm to carry out patrols at night in cemeteries run by the council.

"Hopefully that will prevent any repeat incidents in the cemeteries. "Such incidents are rare but when they do happen.

"They are very upsetting to people and we can't understand why anyone would want to interfere with gravestones or tributes. It is very sad."

Staff at the Burnley Road cemetery say their site is a prime target for troublemakers because it so big and hard to patrol.

Mr Davey added that the council was still trying to contact the families whose dead relatives' headstones -- which date back to the early 1990s -- had been vandalised. He said: "We have made contact with the Asian community and we hope they will be able to find the families involved."

Two of the headstones marked the last resting places of babies, including one who was just two months old.

The racist attack came just 24 hours after a similar attack at Preston Cemetery. Police have refused to rule out a link between the two incidents.

Detective Inspector Bob Eastwood said: "There is no doubt in my mind that this is a racist incident motivated by narrow-minded bigotry and prejudice.

"It is always distressing when an attack of this nature occurs and we will do everything we can to apprehend the people involved."