WW1 Tommies commemorative figure vandalised in Sheringham

The figure was put up by the Sheringham Royal British Legion (RBL) just a week ago by RBL standard bearer Eddie Mayell

Vandals have decapitated a plastic outline of a soldier which was put on a bench to commemorate those who died in World War One.

The artwork was put up a week ago by the Sheringham Royal British Legion's standard bearer Eddie Mayell in the coastal town in Norfolk.

But on Saturday he found the head had been snapped off.

Mr Mayell said: "It is such a shame what has happened. It is very disrespectful."

The plastic outline is one of many across the UK which form part of the There But Not There project, which was originally inspired by artist Martin Barraud's 51 commemorative figures created at Penshurst Church in Kent in 2016.

The figures are referred to as Tommies - after the nickname given to British soldiers

Lord Richard Dannatt, former head of the British Army and patron of Remembered - which is behind the Tommies project - told BBC Radio Norfolk the vandalising actions of someone who might have been "drunk as a skunk" would "not spoil what has been an amazing commemoration".

Novelist Sebastian Faulks, author of Birdsong and There But Not There ambassador, said it was important that people should feel part of the centenary commemoration.