Vandalism in Rye Cemetery

In the evening of Tuesday December 23 Rye Cemetery was vandalised. A car wreaked havoc, smashing tombstones, graves and floral tributes leaving people with family graves there in shock.

As police investigations continue, two families have shared their reaction to the damage.

“I’m not sure the people responsible will ever read this or indeed, even care if they did,” said Bernie Peters. “One of the ripped-out headstones is my uncle Tommy’s; opposite him is Mark, my husband’s grave. Miraculously his headstone appears to be standing, albeit his grave has been driven over. I wonder if they looked at the words on Mark’s grave, ‘For us there is no death’ as they ploughed over him? I doubt they wondered what sort of man he was. I would want them to know he was funny, a Londoner through and through, a worker who loved us.”

Mark was 42 when he died in a traffic collision. “How ironic then that he has been disrespected in this way. His boys were four and six years old when he died, they were stood at my side as we received the knock on the door to tell us he was dead. The vandals won’t know that as we buried him – his family, me, a widow at 35 years old with two little boys that wondered why their Dad wasn’t coming home again – we said the words, ‘Tread carefully, for a dream lies buried here.’ They also won’t know that when we go to visit, we do tread carefully around him, to allow him to sleep peacefully and because he is so precious. Even when our boys went to the grave to ‘share’ their first pint with their Dad, they respectfully ‘cheers-ed’ from the side.”

Bernie said the damage affected everyone with a loved one in the the cemetery. “Every grave there holds memories, holds unfulfilled dreams, wishes and lots of love. All the people left behind ask is that their loved ones are left to rest peacefully. People have scrimped and saved to erect a memorial they can come to, to sit and think, sit and wish and replay memories. What right does someone else have to spoil that? Personally I would like to say thank you to the man in the picture tidying up Mark’s grave. If he could, he would have said a South London ‘Cheers mate!’”

Rye is home to many caring people and Andy Stoodley is certainly one of them. He went to the cemetery the morning after the cars had wrecked the graves and although his family’s graves had not been vandalised, he set to to help straighten them and restore order where there was chaos. Andy sent this report to Rye News.

“When I heard about what had happened at the graveyard I was terrified one of my relatives graves (Mum, Dad, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, and grandparents) who are all there had been vandalised. I went straight up there and on arrival, before I’d even got out the car by the middle church, my sister had phoned in a panic telling me about it. I said I was there and going to check straight away. I saw on my way down people who had already been to check on their loved ones. When I saw all the damage I could see that none of my relatives were affected but couldn’t believe the damage and mess elsewhere. Gravestones were either completely displaced or knocked over. Flowers, ornaments, decorative scrolls, vases, artificial flowers and all manner of memories from loved ones were all over the grass.

“Tyres marks half a wheel deep were all over the grass and some on the graves. Big holes where once gravestones stood. I’d taken a small spade, trowel and garden fork to tend my relatives graves while I was there. I quickly tidied those then went back to the damage site. By this time Rob Parfit was there. He had come up for the same reasons as I did. He had brought some liquid cleaner. We both decided we would try and make the graves look better for any relatives that came to see the graves. I knew I would be devastated to see a loved one’s grave like that so wanted to make them look tidier.

“Some of the damaged ones already had wreaths on them from loved ones for Christmas as it was Christmas Eve morning. We spent a good one and a half hours filling in tyre marks, cleaning pictures and ornament stones that were covered in mud and we replaced flowers, vases scrolls etc on the graves. It looked a lot tidier but would still obviously cause upset when relatives saw them but it’s as much as we could do to show some compassion for the deceased and the families. I had over sixty five messages in the end from worried relatives asking about their loved ones graves. This shows how much it affected the local community. I think most, if not all local people I know, have at least one person or have a relative resting up there. Some have multiples. All we ever want is for them to rest in peace in that lovely place.”

Stacey Sage described the damage to her father’s grave. “It is with absolute heartbreak that my family, along with several others, are having to come to terms with this cruel and senseless act of vandalism, especially at such a meaningful time of year. My father’s grave was struck with full force, throwing his headstone more than ten feet from where he was laid to rest. Tyre tracks were left across his grave, destroying his keepsakes, flowers and vases — the small comforts we leave behind to show our love.”

She said the family was working closely with the police and the other affected families to ensure those responsible are held accountable. “All we want is for my father, and every other loved one, to be allowed to rest in peace. This cemetery has always been a beautiful, respectful place — the very reason so many families chose it as the final resting place for those they hold dear. I spent this last weekend trying to put the gravestone back in place and tidy the mess that was created but the ground was too hard to remove the tyre marks, which I found distressing.“

Inspector Simon Whitehead from Sussex Police said, “Anyone with information is urged to report it to police online or by calling 101 quoting the serial number ‘828 of the 24/12’”.

Stacey Sage has just posted an update on Wednesday 7 January, “The council will bear the cost of re-fixing the headstones as a result of the incident on 23 and 24 December 23 2025. JF Stoneworks of Battle will collect all the headstones to fix the damage and then replace them, hopefully within a couple of weeks. They will be collected either this Friday or Monday next week.”

Image Credits: Bernie J , Stacey Sage .