PRANKSTERS put scores of people's lives at risk when they glued the main doors of a block of flats together.

The doors are the only exit from the 11-storey flats at Caulkers House in Chatham. Had a fire broken out, there would have been no way to escape. Residents had to battle to get the door open after the two magnetic plates which keep the door locked were glued together.

Tom Odley, who lives on the top floor, was furious as his daughter, Tani, was 45 minutes late for work. But the glued door could have caused much more serious problems.

The only other exit is from the patio doors in two of the ground floor flats.

Mr Odley said: "It was an accident waiting to happen. What if there was a fire? What idiot could think of doing something like that? It's all very well having a little joke but I don't see the funny side of it. Someone could have got hurt."

Mr Odley has lived in the block of flats, in a different apartment to his daughter, for the past five years. He has been complaining for months about the need for CCTV cameras, following constant vandalism and bad behaviour by some of the flats' residents, but he complained Beaver Housing Society, the owner of the flats, is not interested.

A spokesman for the society said: "We dealt with the problem with the main doors as soon as we could. We wanted to get professional people in to repair the lock.

"We were very concerned about the disruption the vandalism caused and we reported the incident to the police."