Featherston community rallying to fight vandalism

Featherston is rallying to defend its streets and schools from vandalism that has seen buildings defaced and children's feet cut from broken glass.
About 24 residents so far have signed up for community patrols in partnership with police, community board chairman Garry Thomas said yesterday.
In recent weeks at least three boys at St Teresa's School sustained cuts to their feet from the remnants of many broken bottles left lying around the grounds.
A window at the school was also broken, curtains stolen and rubbish bins incinerated in the school holiday attack.
St Teresa's School principal Carol Pilcher said the students "would like to give a message to the people who disrespect and abuse our school grounds: Stay away; you are spoiling our school".
Mr Thomas said the damage is symptomatic of a wider, ongoing problem.
"We (the town) had another attack of graffiti on Friday night.
"We have got a problem with tagging around town; that's why we're setting up these patrols."
Mr Thomas said the group is waiting for training and certification from police, and "could always use more volunteers".
He said the townspeople had "had enough" of the damage.
"We've got people who are ready to go out and bust heads, but we're not allowed to do that."
Featherston Police Sergeant Kevin Basher said vandalism is "an issue that's spiking again".
The last period of sustained damage happened late last year, he said.
"Before Christmas we had a young man picked up, who is in the process of cleaning up the damage he did."
But Mr Basher said vandalism was not the only reason for the patrols, which had "always been ticking away every now and then you have a revival".
He said Featherston is "just like everywhere else, really" for vandalism.
Asked who is suspected to be behind the damage, Mr Basher said "young people, obviously; it's not people from the RSA".
"There are probably one or two main ones, and the others are just tagging along, so to speak."
Featherston School principal Phil Robertson said the school has not had much vandalism in recent times but "we've got security cameras installed, which has put a stop to a lot of that".
"Occasionally we get broken glass in the pool, which is pretty dumb, because it's probably their little brothers and sisters which are going to get cut feet."
He also noted "minor graffiti, with felt-tip pens, not people setting bins on fire or anything like that".
The cameras were installed about 3? years ago, after many windows at the school had been broken.
Mr Robertson said Featherston does "seem to have a hard core who think it's OK to go around smashing glass and stuff like that."
He said cameras are only a partial solution to vandalism and other factors like improved lighting also help.