VANDALS who ripped a replica metal bayonet from an East Lancashire war memorial have been blasted - and told to remember why the sculpture was there in the first place.

The Royal British Legion in Oswaldtwistle is now trying to work out how to fund the repairs to Oswaldtwistle's cenotaph, at the junction of Rhyddings Street and Union Road.

War veterans spotted the metal piece - part of a sculpture of a First World War soldier - had gone missing earlier this week.

Initially it had been feared the cenotaph had been targeted by metal thieves, but the twisted bayonet copy was later found nearby and temporarily replaced.

Jean Lockwood, an Oswaldtwistle councillor and member of the Royal British Legion, said: "Youngsters hang around there all the time in the evening and we don't mind that.

"But it looks like they have started climbing up it and pulled the bayonet part out.

"It is very sad that this war memorial has been

vandalised like this. It is in a prominent location in the town and means a great deal to a great deal of people.

"There are youngsters not much older than those responsible for this vandalism who went off to war to die for this country, and that is who we remember with the memorial.

"On Remembrance Sunday it is packed around here for the silence, and many people put poppy crosses down here as a mark of respect.

"We don't know how it will be replaced, or who can afford to do it, but it would be a great shame to lose it. It looks horrible incomplete."

Mrs Lockwood said the Oswaldtwistle memorial wasn't the only one under attack - vandals kept daubing a cenotaph in honour of Church's war dead - in Gatty Park - with graffiti.

In the past, sick youngsters have even etched the number '7' on the back of the memorial in tribute to David Beckham.

She said: "Both are very poignant places and this sort of behaviour is very unfair."