Guards patrol vandalised cemetery

George Cross recipient Supt Richardson's grave is there

Security guards have begun patrolling an historic cemetery where vandals knocked over and damaged 52 headstones.

Blackpool Council and Lancashire Police have stepped up patrols in Layton Cemetery following Tuesday's attack.

The Blackpool cemetery is home to two survivors of the charge of the Light Brigade and the highest-ranking UK police officer to be killed on duty.

A police investigation is under way and the council is also looking at other ways of improving security.

Letters are being sent out to the relatives of those whose headstones have been damaged.

War graves

The cemetery, which opened in 1873, has more than 16,700 graves, including 280 war graves.

One of those buried in the cemetery is Supt Gerry Richardson, 38, who was shot dead on 23 August 1971 trying to stop armed robber Frederick Joseph Sewell.

The most senior police officer to be murdered on duty, he posthumously received the George Cross, the highest peacetime award for bravery.

Among the noted graves is Sgt William Butler's, who was one of the 17th Lancers who was in the charge of the Light Brigade, as was foot soldier Sergeant William Hughes, also buried there.

Other graves at the cemetery include Charles Noden who was the first person to publicise Blackpool as a holiday resort, and a memorial to the Bickerstaff family - who built Blackpool Tower.

Celebrated Lancashire dialect poet Samuel Laycock and Afro-American historian George Washington Williams also have graves there.