IMAGINE the distress of Chris Hampson and his family.

As he and his wife and baby son sat by his father's deathbed at the Park Lee Hospice in Blackburn, young thugs broke into his car outside and stole the flowers they had brought along with the child's food.

Yet, worse and unbelievably sicker still, as they were leaving an hour after Mr Hampson's father had died, their grief was shattered by horror as louts hurled bricks at their car.

But consider this: some of these youngsters were aged about eight and it was around midnight when this occurred.

Just what kind of scum is being bred in our community - when they will knowingly prey on and attack anguished visitors to a hospice?

And what on earth are children so young doing out that that time of night?

Have their parents no concern for them or any control over them?

It is a desperately sad commentary on our society when such depths are reached.

But this deed - and indeed the security problems at Park Lee that are highlighted by it - must be responded to by the police with swift action to catch these wicked children and by the courts to punish them as hard as they can.

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