A GANG of youths left a trail of destruction in a quiet York street today.

Walls were knocked over, coping stones knocked off and smashed and fences wrecked at about a dozen homes during the rampage in Grantham Drive, Holgate, between 1am and 2am.

Les Forth, who has lived in the road for 44 years, said his wife, Monica, was woken by a noisy gang in the early hours.

"They've gone along the right side of the road up the street from Poppleton Road and pushed off coping stones and pushed over some gateposts. It's just sheer vandalism," said Mr Forth.

"The stones have fallen into people's garden's wrecking their plants. They couldn't knock our coping stones off because they're fixed."

Mr Forth said that many of his neighbours who had been victims of this outbreak of wanton vandalism were elderly. At the bungalow of a disabled widow a brick gatepost had been demolished and a gate ripped off.

Will Foster, who has lived in the street for 50 years, said the incident was not isolated because there had been similar acts of vandalism and also thefts from gardens.

The Rev Derek Wooldridge, of Grantham Drive, said: "It's all fairly trivial, but annoying.

"The tops of gateposts have been knocked off and a window has been broken at No 84. It's annoying and I wonder what's behind it. I suspect it's people having too much to drink.

"Most people seem to have been woken up with odd bangs in the night and couldn't work out what it was. That's certainly what happened with us."

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police confirmed they had a number of calls from residents of Grantham Drive in the early hours reporting that a fence had been knocked down.

Police attended the scene after 1.45am and a group of youths scattered on their arrival. No arrests were made.

Updated: 11:21 Saturday, August 28, 2004