Three vandal attacks in a matter of days on Nottinghamshire power cables left thousands of people without electricity and could have caused serious injury or death, according to Central Networks.

The first attack was near Clay Lane in Newark, where engineers discovered that someone had thrown a set of bicycle handlebars and a candlestick holder into 11,000 volt overhead lines.

More than 2,100 homes and businesses lost power for an hour and a half as engineers worked to make the lines safe again.

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Also, children in Thoresby-Warsop were seen by neighbours throwing tree branches across the 33kv power lines. They were later chased off by Central Networks engineers who spotted them attacking a transformer connected to the 11,000 volt network.

And, in the latest incident, almost 900 customers lost power in the same area on Monday of this week, when sticks were thrown at the overhead line.

As well as the inconvenience to customers, the vandals targeted high voltage power cables which could have caused truly terrifying - and life-threatening - short circuits.

Phil Wilson, Customer Operations Manager with Central Networks, said: "Whether these incidents were childish, schoolboy pranks or something more sinister, such as somebody trying to steal the cabling, we don't know but it was clearly a hugely dangerous thing to do.

"The message is simple - power lines can kill, stay away from them."

(CD/JM)