A PARISH priest and former police officer today spoke of his horror after an 84-year-old woman fell and broke her hip as she attempted to reprimand a group of tearaways as they stoned a church.

Father Geoffrey Hilton, of St Augustine's RC Church in Lowerhouse, Burnley, said the incident has brought 18 months of misery to a head.

He said the area was plagued by vandals who are terrorising the neighbourhood.

He said: "I've been living here for two years and in the last 18 months there has been an acceleration of yobbish behaviour by large roving gangs of youths who live in the area or come from outside.

"Over that time my parish has come in for a lot of damage. We've had the wall pushed down on the car park, fencing damaged, fires lit close to the church and we've had them on the roof damaging drainage pipes and at St Augustines RC School where they have damaged skylights."

In the latest incident the gang stoned the church as parishioners held a meeting.

The 84-year-old woman went outside to reprimand the group but fell down the steps and broke her hip

Father Hilton, 45, a former Greater Manchester Police officer ordained into the priesthood in 1989 after studying catholic theology in Spain and Italy, said he understood the problems police of anti-social behaviour.

"I understand the police at Padiham, who cover this area are stretched with resources.

"In our society there are children and teenagers with very little moral obligation to the society they live in. Some of these are very poorly educated and don't seem to be able to converse. Their way of communicating is aggression.

"We think people's quality of life is being damaged considerably and a lot of elderly people are nervous to travel, especially in the evenings." Lowerhouse ward councillor Eddie Fisk said he feared for elderly residents in the area.

He said: "If the police do not do more to help the problem will get worse.

"We have four under-passes in this area and they are frightened to death of going through those so are stuck in their homes."

Sergeant Martin Hall, problem orientated co-ordinator for Burnley West Police, said a plan of action was already in place.

He said: "Last month we had 257 incidents of juvenile nuisance reported to us. From that I have created a patrol plan of our hot spot nuisance areas.

"We are never going to eradicate it; we can just move them on and everyone thinks problems are worse in their area. An officer is soon to be allocated to the Rose Grove area to try to eradicate youth nuisance there.

"This officer will be paying attention to the Rose Grove and Lowerhouse area."