Parents hand over‘bored' group of teens who damaged model village

A GROUP of teenagers who broke into Southsea Model Village have been forced by their mothers to volunteer at the Hampshire attraction – after they recognised them from Facebook pictures taken on a new CCTV system.

The mothers marched the boys, aged 13 and 14, to the model village and made them apologise to the owners, after images from the March 24 break-in were circulated on social media. It was the second incident of its type in 24 hours; in the first, the culprits were captured on film throwing models at each other, causing £1200 worth of damage to model railway tracks and more than £500 in broken figurines.

Security alert

The local council had erected an 8ft fence to stop intruders, and a GoFundMe web appeal for £1750 to buy 10 4K security cameras, launched by volunteer Brian Le Blond, raised £8580.

The system will light up the village, and zoom in and track any intruders wherever they go, with microphones to capture their voices, and alerts sent through to staff members' telephones so they can turn up and catch them in the act.

“This is something we could never have afforded without the amazing generosity from everyone who has donated to our fundraising page,” said a statement from the attraction.

Owner Mark Wilson said the teenagers' mothers were ‘gutted and embarrassed' after opening Facebook and seeing their sons' faces, and brought them down to the model village in the days that followed to own up and offer to carry out work free of charge.

They told him that the youngsters had trespassed out of boredom.