A COMMUNITY-SPIRITED resident has hit out at vandals who damaged her property in Dorchester.

Heather Robinson regularly raises funds for charity by opening her garden in Bridport Road up to the public.

Her home is marked out by three stone lions that adorn pillars at the front of her property but was was shocked when one of the lions and its concrete base was knocked off while she was out for the evening recently.

Heather said this is not the only instance of vandalism at her property and in the local area and she is fed up with the lack of respect some people are showing for the property of others.

She said: "We have got these lions on the gates and they pulled one of them off.

"Quite how they managed to do it I don't know because I can't even move it."

Heather said she was fairly certain that it would have involved at least two people to get the lion and its base off and whoever did it had likely come prepared with tools such as a crowbar.

She said she could not understand why they had chosen to target her property and what they got out of it.

Heather said she did not report the incident to the police because she felt there was little they could do about it and the local force was already stretched for resources.

She said that vandals also recently damaged a nearby bus stop, which was likely to cost the taxpayer to repair.

Previously Heather had put knitted hats on the lions on her gates to mark various charity causes but she said she had to stop this after they kept getting stolen, even though she had received numerous messages from people who really appreciated what she had been doing.

She said: "It was only a small thing but it gave a lot of people a lot of joy."

Heather has raised hundreds of pounds for charities such as Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie by opening up her garden under the National Gardens Scheme.

She said that sadly, there are some people in the local community who don't share her public spirited ways with littering a common problem in the local areas as well as vandalism.

Heather said: "I don't want to be a killjoy, we have all done high antics in our youth, but I'm not sure looking back I ever targeted people's property or people trying to do the right thing."