Three teenagers who wrecked almost 90 gravestones in a Stirlingshire cemetery have been sentenced to a total of seven months in youth custody.

More than 60 tombstones were overturned and 26 more were smashed and sprayed with blood, causing outrage in the local community.

At Stirling Sheriff Court, the teenagers were told the scale of the destruction, at Bannockburn cemetery last July, was enough to horrify any decent-thinking person.

The gang also vandalised memorial benches and up-rooted trees planted in memory of the dead, after spending the night sniffing glue.

Youth custody

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said he had to reflect the outrage that the destruction had caused in the sentences he passed.

Kris Tuthill, 17, from Maryhill in Glasgow and Steven Thomas, 16, from Bearsden near Glasgow, who had pleaded guilty when the case first came to court, were each sentenced to 60 days in youth custody.

William Cummings, 16, from Stirling, who only admitted what he had done last month, was sentenced to three months in a young offenders institution.

A fourth teenager who had damaged two graves, and admitted what he had done, was ordered to complete 240 hours community service.

Thomas was ordered back to court in September to be sentenced for contempt, after he shouted abuse at the sheriff.