Scots mum whose soldier son was killed in Iraq slams vandals who smeared 'cowards' over war memorial

A campaigning Scots mum whose soldier son was killed in Iraq has slated thugs who desecrated a war memorial.

Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Basra in 2004, was furious after vandals defaced the monument to the dead in Motherwell’s Duchess of Hamilton Park.

They used a red marker to write “cowards”, “scum of the earth” and “rats” over the memorial, which is at the heart of the town’s Remembrance Day service every year.

It came days after the nation remembered the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when our Armed Forces stormed the Normandy beaches to fight Hitler on June 6, 1944.

Rose said on social media: “What is it with these people?

“No matter what you are or what you believe in, there is no need for this.”

Rose Gentle, the mother of Gordon Gentle who was killed while serving in Iraq, has slammed the sick yobs (Daily Record)

Cammy MacLeod of veterans charity Who Dares Cares said: “It is outrageous. There seems to be a spate of these things happening.

“For someone to go out and do this days after the commemorations is an utter disgrace.”

Pictures of triggered fury on social media. Jacqueline Lafferty said: “Disgusting and disrespectful.”

Nancy Willis added: “This is sickening. To think that these brave people have given their lives for the freedom these vandals now enjoy.

The warped vandals scrawled over the names of the heroes who lost their lives (Daily Record)

“Most people now have mobile phones and a photo would greatly help to identify these mindless morons. Respect and honour to our heroes.”

Rose Burnett said: “We never used to have this problem. You have to wonder what’s changed.”

The graffiti was cleaned off by volunteer Lainey McDougall of Lanarkshire War Graves.

In April, veterans were disgusted when two youths were caught trying to rip a Union flag down from the veterans’ ­memorial at Knightswood Cross in Glasgow.

The yobs wrote 'scum of the earth' and 'cowards' on the war memorial dedicated to the heroes of the First and Second World War (Daily Record)

A passer-by confronted the drunken pair before they ran off.

In February, a memorial in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow, to soldiers who fought in the Boer War was badly damaged by vandals with hammers.

North Lanarkshire Council said: “This ­disrespectful act can’t be tolerated.”

Police said the ­memorial was vandalised some time between Saturday and Monday and appealed for information.