Parents of children who use an adventure playground have pleaded with vandals to stay away.

New Parks Adventure Playground has been targeted at least twice over the past two weekends.

On each occasion, thugs broke into the Glenfield Road site, in New Parks, Leicester, and vandalised equipment.

The charity which runs the playground is now facing a bill of up to £500 to repair a basketball hoop which had been ripped off its mounting and holes which were gouged into an artificial sports pitch.

Manager Pat Roberts said: "The people who run the playground are parents from New Parks, and it's New Parks kids who come here.

"So if the people who are doing this are from around here too, then they're taking away from their own.

"We're a charity and money is tight at the moment, as it is for everyone.

"We just want to appeal to the people who have been coming here to do these things over the past couple of weeks to think about what they've done.

"The police are looking into it and they're going to patrol the area, but they can't be here all the time.

"If the gate is locked at night that means we're closed and anyone on the site shouldn't be here."

Vanessa Wood, 31, whose two children Klayton, 11, and Amelia, six, regularly go to the centre, said: "What these people have done over the past two weekends is really disgusting and upsetting.

"There's no reason for that kind of vandalism. It's just spiteful."

The offences have been reported to Beaumont Leys police. Officers are investigating.