An elderly woman who has been admitted to hospital 29 times this year woke up on Saturday to find that her car had been “trashed” by Halloween vandals.

The Comet: The damaged carThe damaged car (Image: Archant)

Pensioner Vera Hensby, 78, went out to her blue Ford Fiesta at 10am to find that it has been repeatedly scratched all over.

The former cleaner and her husband Derek, 81, have lived in Stevenage all their lives and had just spent £200 getting an oil leak in the car fixed.

Her daughter Linda Witt, 48, said: “She was absolutely horrified when she saw the car. She’s been admitted to hospital 29 times with various problems from pneumonia to head injuries this year and I thought she was going to have a heart attack when she saw it.

“We saved for months as a family to buy that car and it was her pride and joy and now it is completed trashed. It looks like someone’s ran a knife all up and down it.

“My mum’s had a bad year. Recently she was involved in an accident on a bus and ended up hitting her head very hard on a metal pole. She had a huge black eye and as she’s on blood thinning tablets doctors were worried that she might have a lot of internal bleeding. She was rushed to Lister Hospital for a brain scan.

“My father’s not very well either. He suffers from osteoporosis which means he isn’t very mobile and relies on my mum to drive him about.

“They just can’t understand why they were targeted. They get on well with all their neighbours and no other cars in the street were damaged on Halloween.

“She’s just hoping that someone saw something and will report it to the police so they can investigate it and bring them to justice.”

Mrs Witt revealed that the damage is greater than the value of the car meaning the insurance company will not pay to fix the damage.

Anyone with information should call the Herts police non-emergency number 101.