HUNDREDS of poems and artworks hung on trees by schoolchildren to help build community spirit have been destroyed by drunken teens.

Children, aged from five to ten, at St John’s, Colchester, wrote and designed poems to display on trees at St Christopher’s Road shopping parade, as part of a project to help them appreciate their environment and bring the community together.

Now, in an incident described as “sick”, teenagers tore down the children’s work, threw beer over them and left broken glass and plastic bags everywhere.

Paula Baker, chairman of the project, said: “There were smashed bottles everywhere.

“It was a beautiful display and such a unpleasant thing for them to do.

“It just goes to show how important these projects are in teaching younger children about respect for their environment, so hopefully they won’t grow up and do the same thing.”

Ms Baker has now cleaned up the mess and put the display back together, but she said much of it has been completely destroyed.

Earlier this month, hundreds of pupils from Friars Grove Primary and St John’s Primary schools hung their tree-themed poems on branches of trees.

The poems were displayed as part of a new project, Growing in St John’s, which aims to find and cultivate a piece of open space to help build community spirit in the area.

PCSO Matt Ladkin branded the vandals “mindless” and said he would be investigating the incident and stepping up patrols in the area.

He said: “I will be looking into this.

“For the children to spend such a lot of time and effort into a project, just to have it destroyed by mindless vandals is really a great shame.”