A DECORATIVE piece of artwork which took almost a year to complete has been torn down and wrecked by a group of vandals.

At the weekend vandals climbed on the roof of Peartree Primary School in Welwyn Garden City and into an internal courtyard where the breeze-block sculpture stood. They smashed up the statue and damaged play equipment used by reception class pupils.

Sherry Hart, headteacher, said: "The sculpture is irreplaceable and all the children are devastated about it. Every pupil worked on the sculpture which has been there for less than a year.

"We will try and put it back together again, but it will never be the same as some of the breeze blocks were smashed up.

"I find it really frustrating that teenagers have nowhere else to go other than a primary school.

"It is such a nuisance and it puts into place what we can leave about and what we can go and spend our money on if it is just going to be trashed."

CCTV cameras at the front of the school in Peartree Lane recorded groups of youngsters coming into the school on three separate occasions over the weekend.

Parts of a fence and roof tiles were also damaged in the attack and the gang left behind empty beer cans and drug paraphernalia relating to cannabis smoking.

Ms Hart said the vandals' ability to get on to the roof was made easier by scaffolding left up by builders who are carrying out repairs to the roof. Since the scaffolding went up the school has been plagued by a series of problems.

Two weeks ago youths pushed a hosepipe through a lock and flooded a classroom, before repeating the trick days later when they forced the hose through a window.

The lock and window have now been sealed up and the hosepipe removed, but Ms Hart said the damage caused ran into thousands of pounds.

She said the school was now considering the installation of more internal CCTV cameras and added: "If they think this is somewhere they will not be seen they are wrong.

"We will do all we can to stop them coming back. "

Anyone with information about the incident should contact police on 01707 638102.