IT'S the medical project that law-abiding citizens everywhere are eagerly awaiting: a look into the brain of the average vandal.

There, it is hoped, will lie some answer to the behaviour which results in the kind of sickening vandalism reported in this newspaper today.

Hooligans overturn and damage gravestones at St Michael's Churchyard in Great Lever. Thugs destroy a popular pensioners' bowling club. And cruel thieves consistently target a disabled woman's much-loved garden.

It is as though there is a depraved underclass of, mainly young, people who so resent anyone else having pleasure in life that they must destroy its source.

It doesn't seem to matter whether such scum come from caring or careless homes; whether they have possessions or own next to nothing.

Their programming is simply to wreak havoc and unhappiness where they can. And this will continue, until this country has a system of realistic punishment which accurately reflects the results in human suffering of each crime.

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