A WHOLE area of Southampton is today rallying round a bid by two grieving families for urgent action to stop the sickening desecration of graves.

More than 4,000 people have backed the plea from the families of tragic children Jodi-Marie Bennett and Megan Watts to leave Southampton's dead in peace.

And the campaign team, led by Jodi-Marie's mum Tracey Attwood and Megan's parents Phillip and Bernadette Watts, has pledged not to rest until the demands for tighter security at cemeteries and tougher action against known vandals are met.

Topping their request list is a call for floodlights to be erected at cemeteries to deter night crimes and the appointment of round-the-clock security guards.

The group, called Grave Issue, has formed a committee, and has had a meeting with mayor Derek Burke who has urged them to present their case to councillors next month.

And if they have no success there they have vowed to hand deliver their petition to Home Secretary Jack Straw

The distraught trio, supported by Tracey's sister Glynis More-land, were spurred to action after vandals repeatedly stole or smashed toys and flowers left on the graves of their daughters, interred just yards away from each other at St Mary's Extra cemetery at Sholing.

Jodi-Marie died aged 11 last March when a pioneering bid to remove a rare lesion on her face ended in tragedy.

Six-year-old Megan suffered a fatal burst appendix in July.

But neither little girl has been allowed to rest in peace.

Tracey, 36, said on her daily trips to Jodi-Marie's grave she had uncovered at least six acts of vandalism and theft in recent months.

"It's hard enough getting from day to day without having to face this. These places are supposed to be sacred places of rest."

Bernadette Watts, also 36, said toys were stolen from Megan's grave just days after she was buried last July.

"They are the scum of the earth, these people. We can't sit here and watch this go on any longer," she said. "Every day I go up to the cemetery I don't know what I'm going to find. It shouldn't be like that."

Now, less than a fortnight after the campaign was launched with petitions placed in shops in the east of the city, scores of other people also affected have come forward with their own testimonies of private grief made worse by the actions of vandals.

"What we have come to realise is it's not just us who has suffered," said 44-year-old Glynis, chairman of the campaign com-mittee. "Since we put out these petitions the response has been overwhelming. People are saying 'Thank God somebody is doing something at last'.

"One elderly gentleman told us how the headstone at his late wife's grave at St Mary's Extra had been repeatedly vandalised. He rigged up a camera in a tree to catch the vandals and came back the next day to find that not only had they smashed the stone again, but they'd stolen the camera.

"The problems aren't just here. At Hollybrook Cemetery there have been stories of toys getting stolen. And it's not only things like that, it's flowers getting stolen or trampled for no reason.

"We're not asking for the impossible. We have worked it out it and the cash that was spent on a couple of minutes of fireworks over the New Year would pay for a security guard on a £30,000 salary for four and-a-half years."

"It's bad housekeeping to keep repairing inadequate cemetery fences and gravestones when this problem could be sorted out quite easily.

"If they can use tax money to stick CCTV cameras in car parks in town to protect lumps of metal then they can do the same for us."

Glynis added: "The mayor was sympathetic but we want more than tea and sympathy. We need action."

The campaign is being backed by funeral directors, florists, banks, shops and clubs in Thorn-hill, Thornhill Park, Harefield, Weston, Woolston, Merry Oak and Sholing.

In the meantime a public demonstration is to be held next Monday at St Mary's Extra cemetery Anyone wishing to contact the group can call 01703 492085.

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