A violation of private grief; Grave vandals are just wicked.

Byline: Pete Price 

EVIL and wicked are the only two words I can think of for these mindless, brain-dead people who desecrate graves.

Over the years, I have had to try and console people on my phone-in who are grief-stricken. Not only have they lost their loved ones, but their sacred plot of land - the small space where they can go and grieve in private whenever they want to talk to them, has been violated.

When I was a child, I got the belt if I stood on a sacred piece of ground. I was frightened and respectful of graveyards.

The idea of playing there couldn't have been further from my mind.

Please, someone tell me, in this strange society we live in, how someone can take a toy from a dead baby's grave? Or take flowers from a woman who has suffered a terrible death at the hands of cancer.

How can they steal and break vases, destroy headstones?

What makes these people tick? Have they not lost anyone?

The reason I am writing this piece is that I was sent a six-page letter from an army soldier who came home to bury his mother.

"I laid my mother to rest," it said. "She had more peace alive. Her grave has been urinated on. Paint daubed on the headstone. Beer cans thrown around the broken vases.

"I lay awake at night while in Iraq, wondering if she is at peace, or whether she's more distressed than ever.

"I wish I could meet these people on the battlefield."

That was the part of the letter I could print.

So what can we do about it? Because something needs to be done.