‘My teen son’s vodka-swilling gang wrecked model railway’
‘Doesn’t excuse their behaviour’
SCHOOlBOyS ‘fuelled by vodka’ from a pre- GCSE exam celebration carried out a shocking attack on a model railway exhibition, the mother of one of the vandals has revealed.
The 44-year-old woman said she was ‘mortified’ by her 15year- old son’s drunken rampage and has punished him by confiscating his mobile phone and games console and grounding him indefinitely.
The group of four boys, aged 15 and 16, had been celebrating Trail of destruction: From Monday’s Mail the end of lessons before their GCSEs and broke into a school sports hall after finding themselves locked out of the mother’s family home. She was working overnight. Police are investigating the teenagers for burglary and criminal damage, but they have not yet been charged with any criminal offences and remain on bail.
The mother said the boys were writing letters of apology to the model railway club.
In stark contrast to the youths’ thuggish behaviour, well-wishers from around the world have donated £85,000 to the Market Deeping Model Railway Club in lincolnshire to help it recover from the devastating damage.
Many exhibits had been built over decades of painstaking work and were ruined. Tables were overturned and layouts worth tens of thousands of pounds were smashed and destroyed.
The exhibits had been put up on tables in the hall in Stamford, lincolnshire, and left overnight before the club’s annual show.
The boy’s mother told MailOnline: ‘They’d got a bottle of vodka from somewhere and were in high spirits at having finished school for their GCSEs. But that doesn’t excuse their behaviour. The boys are gutted at what they’ve done. They can’t explain their actions.
‘They ended up in the sports hall and saw the model railway displays. One of them booted a football at one of the exhibits which caused it to smash on the floor. That was the spark for what then happened. A mixture of alcohol and stupidity took over.
‘ They can only remember knocking over some of the tables and stands and hadn’t realised the full destruction until the police showed them photographs of it. I’m mortified by his behaviour and his father couldn’t speak to him for a few days he was so angry.’
The alarm at Stamford Welland Academy was triggered at 3.50am on Saturday. Police sent in a dog to sniff out the cowering intruders.