A TERRIFIED woman says she is desperate to leave Chorley after being terrorised by a gang of youths on a local housing estate.

During the past year, 29-year-old Claudine Waddington, of Ullswater Road in the Tootell Street area says she has had a firework pushed through her letterbox, graffiti daubed on her door and eggs thrown at her windows. Her car has been vandalised and her garden shed looted.

And Claudine, mother of three children aged four, five and eight, says she has had to put up with verbal abuse, dogs fouling her garden and people trying to break into her house.

Her eldest daughter has been bullied and knocked off her bicycle. She believes a gang with members as young as 14 are responsible, but does not know why she is being targeted.

Claudine's daughters are too scared to leave the house and have nightmares. And now she says her only wish is to leave Chorley for good.

"I don't know how much more of this I can put up with," she said.

"Every time the gang go past my house they try my door handle to see if it is unlocked. I'm living in constant fear. When they tried to get in my house last week my children woke up screaming. I ended up staying up all night because I was so scared."

The abuse began when she tried to put up a fence to define the boundaries of her back garden and neighbours objected. Sergeant Sue Seddon of Chorley Police said: "Two of the incidents were reported to us and we are carrying out thorough investigations.

"We cannot be sure who is responsible and we can obviously only investigate those incidents that have been reported. If Miss Waddington believes she is being specifically targeted then she should, of course, come back to us."

Claudine moved to the North West from Auckland, New Zealand in 1989 to be close to her Manchester-based mother and was given a local authority house in Chorley in October 2001. She wants to move to Birmingham where she has friends but has been told finding a new home could take several months. She said:

"I've told the council about the problems but for them to do anything I have to make a formal complaint but I'm too scared of what the gang might do if they find out."

Steve Lomas, Head of Housing Services at Chorley Borough Council said: "There is no particular nuisance with gangs around the area, it seems Miss Waddington's problem is specifically with some of her neighbours. We have been in touch with housing officers in Birmingham but it is taking some time as more than one authority is involved.

"We are doing our best to resolve the problem but it is difficult because some of the incidents have not been reported to us. But we are liaising with the police and hope to sort out the situation as soon as we can."

Meanwhile, Claudine feels she cannot get on with her life: "I feel very depressed and completely isolated. I just want to get me and my kids out of here."