Cruel vandals ripped out and tipped over a pensioner’s garden pond, killing one of her beloved goldfish.

The yobs struck at the Thackley home of Doreen Brook, 83.

The great-grandmother said she woke up yesterday to discover the vandals had got into her back garden, pulled her fibreglass pond out of the ground and tipped it over.

Nine of the ten goldfish in the pond had managed to survive by huddling in some leftover water, but one of the fish had died, she said.

Mrs Brook, a retired singer who also has two indoor fish tanks, said her son had only bought the goldfish for her a few days ago.

She said: “I only got my little fish the other day. I just looked through the bedroom window this morning and saw this, and thought, ‘That’s terrible, what’s happened?’ “Then when I saw them, I was crying. It was awful.

“I have lived here for 32 years, and nothing’s ever happened like this.

“Why should anybody want to do this? If they threw stones at the window and broke the window, that would have been terrible enough, but why pick on the fish? They just wanted to make a mess and they did. Why do that to the poor fish?”

Son Allan Brewster said the pond’s pump had also been broken.

He said: “It doesn’t look like it was kids, because kids wouldn’t have been able to lift it up.

“She was really upset. She loves her fish.

“She’s 83. How could anyone do that to a woman who’s 83?”

Mrs Brook, who lives with husband Jack Brewster in Northlea Avenue, said she was now having to get extra security measures fitted.

A police spokesman said a PCSO would be visiting Mrs Brook and appealed for witnesses to the vandalism on Wednesday night come forward.

Anyone with information is asked to call the non-emergency number, 101.