IAN HART: Time to look outside the box to solve vandalism?

A special mention needs to go to Pete Stevens, the hard-working Broadwater Cricket Club secretary, who went in and witnessed the damage and then spent his valuable time clearing it up.

When something like this happens, your first reaction is ‘Why?’.

Why break into the cricket pavilion? Why smash a mirror, vomit, and set fire to advertising boards? What sort of a person or persons behave like this in a civilised society?

We can bandy words round like ‘scum’ and ‘subhuman’, but ultimately when we look deeper is it a sad indictment of our society today?

What kind of a life do these people have to make them do this kind of thing? Yes, we’ve always had vandalism, but in this supposed hi-tech, fast-paced world, they must have serious issues to behave like this.

So what’s the answer? Well maybe this is a bit out of left field, but I’d really like to offer an amnesty to the vandals. What’s done is done. It’s not right but you can’t change anything that’s happened.

What I would like to do, is for them contact me and sit down at a neutral venue and begin to understand how bad their lives are for them to do this.

And then, hopefully, give them some help, to actually end up taking the right road.

My initial reaction last week was a little different, but we’re in a vicious circle of vandalism incidents on the Green, so perhaps looking outside the box is a different way forward?

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