City widow targeted by thugs with fireworks

A WIDOW had her windows smashed by a mob of 30 youths after they let off a barrage of 500 fireworks outside her front door.

The gang set off the rockets in the stairwell of Mandy Gray's block in Willowbrae last night - just one of hundreds of incidents recorded on the busiest ever Bonfire Night for Edinburgh's firefighters.

Mrs Gray - who lost her 47-year-old husband Frank to terminal cancer three weeks ago - began video taping the youths and they responded by pelting her windows with stones, smashing four of them.

The 41-year-old said the teenagers, thought to be between 13 and 19-years-old, were laughing and filming what they were doing on their mobile phones.

It is the third year in a row that Mrs Gray's block in Meadowfield Drive - which she shares with three pensioners - has been targeted.

The full-time carer said she had pleaded with local youths two weeks ago to leave her alone this year because she was still grieving for her late husband.

Operators at the fire and rescue service's control room in Tollcross received 826 calls from 6pm last night, well up on last year's record total of 770.

In one incident, a firework was deliberately put through the window of a flat in Murieston Place, Dalry, causing a small fire in a bathroom.

Stray fireworks also sparked a blaze on Arthur's Seat near the Crags which fire crews were still damping down this afternoon.

In Leith, a children's playpark in Madeira Street was set alight, while one resident reported a gang of teenagers throwing fireworks at his house on Prince Regent Street, and at passing pensioners, just before 8pm last night.

Today, a shaken Mrs Gray told the Evening News she was alone in the house - which she shares with her son Christopher, 24 - at the time of last night's attack.

"It was absolutely terrifying, it sounded like World War Three when the bangers were going off in the stairwell and it is not fair because there are only four of us in the block and my neighbours are all pensioners.

"I probably shouldn't have gone to the window with the camera but why should we have to put up with this?

"I heard them shouting 'Pan her windows in' and they started throwing stones at the windows, stones from my garden, I think.

"About a fortnight ago, I actually saw one of the group and asked them to leave us alone this year because I had lost my husband, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference."

Neighbour Jack Kelly, 75, who has lived in the block for six years, said the residents have regularly been a target on Bonfire Night.

He said: "I actually thought we had got away with it this year because it had been pretty quiet, but then there was this almighty bang and I knew what it was.

"It was just horrendous, incredibly frightening but it is something we have grown to expect every year now - it is very sad.

"My front door has been damaged by the fireworks so I'll need to get the insurance to look at that. I also saw that trees up the road had been set on fire."

The incident took place around 9.30pm last night and police today said around 30 youths were reportedly involved.

A Lothian and Borders spokesman said: "We are keen to speak to anyone who saw this group in the Willowbrae area last night. This could have resulted in serious injury."