A FAMILY'S garden has been wrecked by vandals who slashed a children's trampoline, cut a swing down and set fire to part of a tree house.

Police say the behaviour of the yobs is reprehensible.

And mum-of-three Helen Stacey says she cannot understand why anyone would target innocent children.

The damage at their home in Glenville Close, Wootton Bassett, was done on Friday night or early on Saturday.

Mrs Stacey, 37, said: "We woke up on Saturday to find the garden had been vandalised.

"It's quite upsetting to think that people have been into the garden at night and done this."

The yobs have slashed a trampoline right across the middle, making it unusable.

They also cut the ropes of a swing, broke the ladder to the tree house the children's father built and took a straw bed out of the tree house and burned it in the middle of the lawn.

Mrs Stacey said: "Why target innocent children?

"They spend most of their lives in the garden on the trampoline so this is not much fun for them.

"It's just nasty and unnecessary. What do they achieve by doing this? It's not as if they have stolen any of it, they have just wrecked it."

The people responsible did take some garden tools, which were later recovered in woods at the back of the house.

Mrs Stacey and her husband Mike, 39, have three children, Jed, nine, Sam, six and 10-month old Thomas.

"It's just scary," she said. "We don't know what time it happened. It's so quiet down here, we don't get any trouble whatsoever."

With the summer holidays ahead the boys were looking forward to spending as much time in the garden as possible.

"As soon as they get home from school they are out there, they get so much exercise out of the trampoline," Mrs Stacey said.

Sgt Andy Fortune, of Wootton Bassett police, urged anyone with information on the vandalism to get in touch.

"It's not a nice one," he said. "We are talking about children's play things and I know that the parents are really quite upset.

"We would like very much to know who did it. It's damage to children's play things and I think that makes it worse, it's reprehensible."

Anyone with information about the vandalism should call Wootton Bassett police on 0845 4087000, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.