An act of 'madness' has tarnished a Christmas display hours after it was completed.

Kim Ellis and her family had spent three days perfecting their festive feast for the eyes in Kings Hill, only for it to be struck by vandals.

CCTV footage captures the moment the vandal yanked the candy cane free

The mother-of-four said: "It's madness. This is the third year we've had a big Christmas display and we've never had anything like this before."

Footage from family's home in Pearl Way shows a gang of four walk past their house, yanking a Candy Cane out of the ground and breaking it in the process.

As well as Christmas displays, the Ellis family also transform their home for Halloween each year.

After sharing the footage with neighbours, the housewife said she found the broken candy cane nearby, but it couldn't be fixed.

She said: "Some people will say it's only a candy cane, but its the principle.

"I've shown people in Kings Hill and they're absolutely fuming.

"We've always done a little display but the last three years we've done it for charity."

In 2017 the Ellis family raised around £1,200 for British Heart Foundation, last year they raised about £1,500 for Cancer Research and were hoping to pull in a similar amount for the charity this year.

Mrs Ellis added: "We spent about three days getting all of the display ready, most of it was up by Saturday but on Sunday we had the finishing touches.

"My husband did most of the work, it's something everyone in the community enjoys and parents like to bring their children along and get some pictures outside.

"But on Sunday night they came along and vandalised it. It's got us worried that they might come back now.

"What they did was bad enough, but to doing it to something that was for charity is even worse.

"Because of the display lights flashing you can't really see their faces, but if it was my son in the footage I'd be able to recognise him.

"We're in disbelief, we kept watching the footage over and over again, we couldn't stop talking about it, it just made us so angry."

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