A GANG of hooded yobs who left a trail of destruction around Canvey by kicking off car wing mirrors have been given a warning by police - we will find you.

CCTV footage from a house in May Avenue recorded a group of eight to ten teenagers riding bikes and damaging at least ten cars last Sunday evening.

It is understood that residents living in Lilac Road and Labworth Road were also affected.

PC Steve Judd, from Castle Point and Rochford’s community policing team, said: “We managed to find about ten or 11 cars that were damaged but there could have been more and people just haven’t bothered to report it.

“We knocked on about five or six doors to let them know about the criminal damage to their cars.

“There is CCTV and we know there is a group of eight to ten youths, some on bikes and some on foot.

“We know where they hang about and are determined to find them.

“My message to the members of the group would be that we will make every effort to identify you.

“We would also ask for anyone with any CCTV footage of the incident to send it to us.

“Canvey doesn’t get a lot of these types of offences and certainly not in a cluster like that.

“It is a one-off.”

Sue Lumb, 56, of May Avenue, was alerted to the fact that her Ford Focus had been damaged when police officers knocked on her door at about 8pm last Sunday.

She said: “They just said to us that our car had been vandalised, we knew nothing about it until then.

“They said that there was a group of lads going around on push bikes and they had kicked about ten wing mirrors off the cars.

“They have been blazing a trail of destruction across Canvey on different roads.

“They completely took our wing mirror off, it was literally left just hanging on the car by its wires.”

She said that her neighbour actually had CCTV footage of what happened and it shows a crowd of the hooded youngsters all riding on their BMX bikes.

Alternatively anybody who would like to give information anonymously can speak to crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.

CCTV footage should be sent to steve.judd@essex.pnn.police.uk