AN ANGRY community is uniting against a gang of teenagers who have turned a quiet town churchyard into a den of drugs and underage sex romps.

Mayor of Westbury, Bill Braid, and town clerk, Les Fry, visited All Saints Church on Monday, July 22, to help think up ways of combating the gang.

Ideas being considered include mounting private security cameras on the church walls, involving the churchyard in the town's CCTV project and cutting back yew trees to increase visibility.

Elderly residents tormented by the gang have expressed their heated views with many wanting to form vigilante style groups. Cllr Braid said action needed to be swift but lawful and promised the community would unite against the problem.

The Wiltshire Times revealed last week how police were considering bringing in video cameras and night-time raids, to rid the churchyard of a teenage gang committing sacrilegious acts.

Gang members have urinated in the porch, left cannabis joints among the gravestones, carried out sex acts in full view of elderly residents and scrawled filthy messages on gravestones and church walls.

The Rev Paul Richardson, who was reduced to cleaning up the mess before ceremonies and services, said he is worried for the safety of young teenage girls whose antics could attract the attention of sex pests and perverts.

Cllr Braid said: "I had no idea how bad the situation was until I read about it in the Wiltshire Times.

"We have visited the churchyard and come up with some ways forward.

"The town council is certainly very concerned. We have spoken to residents and some are too scared to go out.

"I have a couple of private cameras and a monitor which could be set up. I have given them to Rev Richardson. Prevention is better than cure. There are things being done we have started the process.

"There is nothing essentially wrong with courting in the churchyard as I used to do the very thing in Scotland but these kids have taken it too far.

"They need to be named and shamed but we must not have vigilante action."

Police officers raided the church on Friday night and evicted a gang of between eight and 12 youths, who were loitering outside the porch doorway.

No arrests were made and there have been no reported incidents since the weekend but Cllr Braid said the menace was far from over.

He said: "It tends to go in waves, if the police have a high presence for a while they will be deterred but as soon as that stops the gang will be back."