Scum... A four-letter word that like so many is meant to hurt and harm.

But on this occasion, we have no intention of apologising for its use.

After all, what else do you call the kind of people that have ‘violated’ – for the third time in a year – the Shepherd’s Hill Pre-school in Blackbird Leys?

Just a few months prior, with the summer holidays over, staff and pupils went back to find their garden vandalised.

Then just last week, staff discovered their school had once again been the target of mindless thugs, with toys smashed, guttering torn down and human faeces left in flower pots.

Yesterday however marked an all-time low for the school’s teachers, parents and children who, upon returning after the weekend away, found plants and posters strewn across the grass, windows broken and, metres away, in the Windale Primary School field, new goal posts bought with Tesco vouchers and used by both the pre-school and primary school, damaged beyond repair.

One can only sympathise with Sarah Pearson, manager of the pre-school, who described the vandalism as “soul destroying”.

But in this case, sympathy isn’t all this offence evokes – anger and outrage too have rightly been stirred.

Anger against those who have perpetrated this pathetic series of attacks, and outrage that no police officer has yet been to visit the school, only a PCSO.

That no-one was hurt, only property, is irrelevant.

This is a crime against our city’s children by individuals who are clearly sick and dangerous.

Let us hope that the police – and the community – will now rally round to catch these...scum.