A SON has spoken of his disgust after a bench in memory of his dad was destroyed by vandals.

The Knox family erected a bench at Deer Park Cemetery, on the outskirts of Dunbar, following the death of their dad, Ally, in 2009.

Since then, they have been regular visitors to the grave but were disgusted to find it had been vandalised this month.

Tony Knox told the Courier: “We had a report that a member of the family had been in the cemetery and said to one of my brothers: ‘Did you know the bench had been damaged?’

“We didn’t know the extent to which it was damaged so I got in touch with my dad’s uncle, who is there frequently, and he confirmed that the bench had been totally destroyed.

“I’m in Dalkeith and I could not get down on the day, so my two brothers walked along and took some photographs.

“They are horrific photographs of the destruction caused – someone just destroyed the bench.”

Tony, 40, has since replaced the bench, which is thought to have been damaged before Thursday, August 4, but was at a loss as to why someone would vandalise it.

He added: “We run the Lost Dunbar page. It was set up in memory of my dad because of his fascination with local history.

“We’ve got lots of photographs and it is unbelievable the amount of people that were absolutely disgusted by it.

“Our Facebook page stretches round the world and people in Australia were saying it was just absolutely terrible.

“We had people offering money to get a new bench or to make us a new bench.

“It just touched everybody; he was so well-known in the town and so many people wanted to help.”

A new bench has been put in place, with the matter also passed on to the police.

Tony added: “When I spoke to the police they were shocked as well.

“The council had been phoned before I managed to do it as well.

“The cemetery is away from the town altogether, it is a good 20 or 30-minute walk.

“Someone has to go out there and do it – it would not be someone putting flowers on the grave.

“It has been somebody without respect for others out there.”

Police Constable Gavin Ross, who is based in Dunbar, told the Courier: “It is a nice, quiet area out there.

“A lot of people go out there to contemplate and I think it is terrible that this has happened and because of that we are giving it extra attention.”

If anyone has any information, contact Police Scotland on 101 or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.