GROUPS of ‘feral’ youths, some as young as 11 years, have reportedly been causing havoc in several West Somerset towns with police seemingly able to do little to curb their behaviour.

In recent incidents in Watchet and Williton which drew large police responses the youths were said to have threatened shop staff with knives as they stole goods.

Residents in Watchet also complained of damage to cars, including smashed windscreens and wing mirrors, and vandalism of public toilets.

One Minehead business said it lost thousands of pounds of Christmas business after youths broke in overnight and caused damage for a third time in six months.

Minehead Sawmills, run by Clifford and Rosie Frost in Mart Road, had to refund customers when it was unable to fulfil orders for logs.

The firm, which has traded from the estate for more than 40 years, is one of West Somerset’s main suppliers of garden and farm fencing materials.

Mrs Frost said vehicles on the four-acre site had been vandalised, including her own car, a camper van which was being stored there, and a lorry being sold by one of the employees.

She said despite the youngsters being caught by police when a passer-by spotted them on the first occasion, they had returned again and again.

Mrs Frost said: “They were caught with a log pick stabbing tyres and some were only about 11 years old.

“What are their parents doing to let them behave like this?”

Mrs Frost said the latest attack saw one delivery lorry written-off and a second badly damaged, meaning orders for which customers had paid could not be met.

She said: “If they got into the big loading machines with the log grab, they could kill themselves.”

The Free Press approached Avon and Somerset Constabulary, which said it could not comment without police crime reference numbers for the incidents.