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Beating the vandals

A crackdown on child vandals, launched by the Leicester Mercury, has been hailed a great success.

The Mercury got involved after it found five schools in Braunstone village were joining forces to spend thousands of pounds employing private security patrols while buildings were left vulnerable during the school holidays.

Just four weeks into its Stop the School Vandals campaign, deputy editor Jeremy Clifford told HoldTheFrontPage that no school in the Braunstone area has been broken into.

During the first fortnight of last year’s summer holidays the five schools linked to the Mercury campaign has already spend £20,000 repairing vandal damage.

The campaign aims to galvanise community action against attacks and also provides a free telephone hotline for the public to report incidents.

Mr Clifford said: “The hotline number we have been running is so successful that when a fire broke out near to one of the schools, a resident rang the hotline before ringing the fire brigade!”

Latest development in the campaign, being run by reporter Dominic Eaves, has seen the Mercury produce 200 baseball caps, branded with the hotline number for kids to collect from their local police station. They have been so popular that the police want more.

The local force is also offering kids a tour of the police station as part of a Mecury competition.

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