Vandals who 'hate Wimbledon' targeted disabled woman's house (From Your Local Guardian)

Vandals who 'hate Wimbledon tennis' targeted disabled woman's house

7:30am Saturday 25th June 2011 in Wimbledon By Omar Oakes

A disabled victim of colourful vandalism believes her house was targeted by yobs who hate the Wimbledon tennis championships.

Heather Campbell - a self-proclaimed “tennis fanatic” - woke up on Thursday morning to find her house covered in purple, green and white paint – the colour of the Wimbledon championships.

She has put up signs all over her house to explain her predicament to her neighbours in Mountfort Place, Southfields, just a few miles from the All England Club.

Ms Campbell, a pensioner who suffers from ME, said: “They’ve done this to me because they know I’m a tennis fanatic and they hate Wimbledon, pure and simple.

“It’s evil. The worst part is that they’ve installed a new CCTV camera which points to my house and it’s not even been turned on yet.”

Ms Campbell complained to her Wandsworth councillor for West Hill ward, Malcolm Grimston, who wrote a letter of reply on April 29 which confirmed the cameras were not yet operational despite being installed in 2009.

In the letter, Coun Grimston said: “In [2007] there had been at least three knives and one machete recovered from Montfort Place, while five drugs packages containing substantive amounts of class A and C drugs had been recovered by police from hiding places in the local area.”

He went on to write: “When [the CCTV cameras] are commissioned, they will observe a wide area around the community centre and shopping area where there have been reported criminal acts over the recent years.”

Have the Wimbledon championships made a big impact on you this year? Leave a comment below, call 020 8722 6335 or email: ooakes@london.newsquest.co.uk.

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