A funeral director says he is lost for words after vandals struck his business.

Alex Whitmey, of William Whitmey Independent Funeral Directors on Chalkwell Road, Sittingbourne, discovered vandals ripped a stickered advertisement off the front window of his shop before attempting to cover CCTV cameras capturing the incident on Sunday.

The 49-year-old funeral director says he will now have to pay hundreds of pounds to repair and replace the damaged Tree of Life display after bored yobs tore parts of it down.

Mr Whitmey said the two youths responsible should consider how they might feel if they had turned up for a service of loved ones only to see the funeral home vandalised.

"As I am a magistrate should the perpetrators themselves be brave enough to come and see me with their parents to give me an apology and find a way of rectifying their actions, I will talk to the police on their behalf"

“I was gobsmacked, you don’t expect a funeral home to have these sort of problems, people need to show more respect for grieving families who may have someone inside,” he said.

Fortunately Mr Whitmey caught the youths on camera and managed to get additional footage from the shop next door, which has been given to police.

The undertaker is convinced they were just bored as they waited for their friends to leave the pizza shop next door.

With this in mind, he was willing to offer the vandals, believed to be aged between 15 and 18, a way to escape a potential criminal record.

“As I am a magistrate should the perpetrators themselves be brave enough to come and see me with their parents to give me an apology and find a way of rectifying their actions, I will talk to the police on their behalf,” said Mr Whitmey.

“If the police find them first then they’re on their own.”

Police confirmed they were investigating said inquiries were still ongoing.

Crime scene investigators examined the scene and took the stickers for fingerprint evidence.

Anyone with information is asked to call 101, quoting crime reference number XY-43186-15.