VANDALS have wreaked havoc at Basildon train station causing severe damage to windows, posterboards, and card readers.

c2c bosses have expressed their anger after the Basildon station was subject to "severe vandalism".

They say in the early hours of the morning chip and pin readers were damaged, windows were broken, as well as the Wi-Fi system being broken.

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As a result, extensive queues were seen at the station during the rush hour period.

A spokesperson for c2c said: “"We're really sorry to our customers travelling through Basildon station this morning who saw the aftermath of this incident.

"This unacceptable act of vandalism caused extensive damage at the station, impacting our customers and colleagues as they travelled through Basildon. 

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“This included damage to our chip and pin readers – resulting in extensive queues this morning – broken windows and posterboards as well as damage to our Wi-Fi system.

"We have this morning been working hard to deal with the damage and have teams on the ground working on repairs and tidying up the station, diverting resources to deal with this incident.

“Unfortunately, as the card readers at the ticket office have been broken, we are currently unable to take card payments at the ticket office so if you need to pay by card, please use the ticket machines, c2c app or c2c website.”

The rail firm also said British Transport Police had attended and arrested a suspect after identifying them on CCTV.

British Transport Police has been contacted for comment on this by the Echo.

A spokesperson for c2c added: "Our colleagues at BTP attended the station and arrested a suspect after identifying them on CCTV; we have thousands of cameras across the network and take zero tolerance when it comes to vandalism."