A Tory parliamentary candidate has hit out at the “scum” who defaced his campaign posters after finding obscenities scrawled across them.

Gordon Henderson, Conservative candidate for Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey who has served as the area's MP since 2010, took to social media to alert his Facebook followers to the damage to his election posters.

During his 400-word post, Mr Henderson suggested he had faced harsher criticisms and abuse while growing up on a council estate in Chatham and once being called a “socialist”.

He wrote: “For those who do not know, somebody has defaced a number of my posters with an obscenity.

“Although it is unlikely that person will be reading this post, since he, or she, appears only to be able to think in words of four letters or shorter, I would like to make the following points (just in case they have somebody who can explain the longer words to them!):-

“Whoever you are you probably think you were being clever abusing me in the way you did, however, you simply demonstrated that you are an imbecile and you do not understand the concept of democracy, which attributes are probably interconnected.

“You probably thought you would upset me calling me a See You Next Tuesday, but you are wrong.

“I grew up on one of the toughest council estates in Chatham and have been called far worst names. In fact somebody once called me a socialist. Shock horror!”

Mr Gordon slammed the “anti-democrat” responsible for the four-letter insult and suggested they caused distress to children on the island.

"Whoever you are you probably think you were being clever abusing me in the way you did, however, you simply demonstrated that you are an imbecile" - Gordon Henderson

He added: “I received a number of emails from people saying that they were disgusted to have their children confronted with such language when stuck in traffic on the Lower Road on Sheppey.

“You were responsible for that distress. I hope you feel proud of yourself.

“I have no idea which political party you support, but whichever party it is, I am sure its local candidate is ashamed they represent scum like you and will make public their disgust at your actions by liking this post.”

Mr Henderson finished his post by promising to replace the ruined posters with new ones as the Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey gear up for the general election next month.

He wrote: “Tomorrow I will be putting up new posters and will continue to do so no matter how many are defaced. If you want to help me, please offer to put up one of my posters in your garden.

“The more posters we erect, the more difficult it will be for the idiots to deface them. Together we can defeat these mindless anti-democrats!”