A DRIVER is warning young people to be wary of the law after she had the word “poo” repeatedly scratched into her car.

Lesley Arber, from Witham, has a lease for a parking space along with three other residents in Town End Field.

Since last Thursday, the word “poo” has been scratched into her black Mercedes seven times.

She believes it could have been done by young schoolchildren.

Mrs Arber said: “I went to pick up my husband from the train station on Thursday and I noticed a mark on the driver’s side door — it was obviously deliberate.

“On Friday morning I realised there was more than one mark, and they had scratched ‘poo’ in three or four places.

“On Monday at about 5pm they had written on the petrol cap and scratched the bonnets of two neighbours’ cars.”

Mrs Arber said a lot of pupils from Howbridge Junior School and Holy Family Primary School use the road.

She is warning parents to tell their children of the trouble they could be in by causing criminal damage.

She said: “It will cost us a fortune to get it done, the scratches are on every door, and there’s one on the petrol cap and two on the bonnet.

“If it just gets the message to parents that children could get a criminal record, they don’t realise the impact it has. It’s not nice and it has caused a lot of hassle, it just doesn’t need to happen.”

She said her more elderly neighbours, who were also targeted, have been left quite upset following the incident.

Mrs Arber is getting her car resprayed, but she fears the troublemakers will return.

Call 101 with information.