ISLANDERS have been left furious after vandals smashed memorial benches and took plaques at the seafront.

Families who have paid hundreds of pounds for benches and plaques in honour of loved ones found they were missing.

A number of concerned residents reported more than 20 plaques have been ripped off the benches at The Point and Thorney Bay Beach, Canvey Island volunteers including Friends of Concord Beach and Canvey Bay Watch have worked tirelessly to install benches to help islanders remember loved ones.

Jenny Skinner, 40, of Canvey, paid about £450 for a bench for her late mum Christine McKay at The Point. Her father Brian McKay took family to see the bench and found the plaque had been removed.

She said: “We moved to the island from Barking and mum died about 25 years ago, so we wanted to have something on Canvey to go and remember her.

“We had it installed last June. “The plaque had a well know West Ham Football Club quote on - I am forever blowing bubbles- and some words from mum too.

“I was told that three other plaques were removed from the benches at The Point. I have heard different things and don’t know what has happened.

“I think it is so disrespectful when people install benches for their loved ones.”

She said the rest of her family are as distressed as her about it.

She said it feels like a personal attack on her and the family.

Barry Palmer, Canvey Independent councillor and volunteer with Canvey Bay Watch said some benches have been defaced and damaged too.

He said: “I have been down to see the benches at Thorney Bay Beach and saw the scratches on the benches.

“I had one woman call me in tears about one of the plaques that have been taken.

“It’s just mindless vandalism. We have now got to think of an idea about stopping this.

“I think there will be a lot of people going down to check their benches.

“I think it’s just random vandalism most of the time.

“The heat may make them looser but I am not sure about that.

“We haven’t found any of them so people must be taking them away with them.”

He said other members of the group are angry too.

He said it will cause an uproar in the island community when people find out.

It is the latest in a spate of incidents of Canvey seafront vandalism. A number of murals have also been damaged or destroyed.

Some, in honour of war heroes, were damaged on the very day people were remembering them. 

The mural at The Point, Canvey, honours war heroes after two planes crashed on the island during the Second World War.

Canvey residents and councillors were left absolutely fuming by thisa being defaced and yet another Canvey seafront mural was targeted on Armed Forces Day.

In June one of the murals and remembrance benches on Thorney Bay Beach were defaced.

Then in May, a mural for a couple who loved dancing was covered in paint.

Sharon Vane, 44, had created the mural on Canvey’s sea wall near Seaview Road for husband and wife Kevin and Sandra Crane late last summer.