Anti-monarchy campaigners have called for Duke of York to be prosecuted after he was reported to have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage by forcing open closed gates of Windsor Great Park in his Range Rover.

A park worker told the Sun that the gates and Prince Andrew’s £80,000 car were damaged in the incident on Sunday night. The gates, which stop deer getting in, usually open via sensor.

“For some reason the sensors didn’t work. Instead of going a mile out of his way, he just decided to ram it open,” the park worker told the paper.

The damaged gates are currently closed for repair.

Buckingham Palace and the Crown Estate, which runs Windsor Great Park, declined to comment. A palace spokesman said: “We are not giving any further briefing.”

Graham Smith, chief executive of Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state, called for police action against the prince.

“If this was anybody else they would be prosecuted for criminal damage and reckless driving,” he told the Guardian.

A spokeswoman for Thames Valley police said there was no record of the incident in its police log.

Asked why they would not be pursuing the incident, a spokeswoman said: “I can’t possibly respond to that without without the full details of what’s occurred, and it would appear from the log that it has not been reported to us. Plus we wouldn’t discuss individual cases at this stage.”

The park worker told the Sun: “It was a crazy thing to do and we are jokingly calling it ‘ParkGate’. [Andrew] has a bit of a reputation for roaring around like Toad of Toad Hall and he seems to think he can do what he likes.”

The prince is known to use the route through the gates as short cut to the Royal Lodge, the Queen Mother’s former home, which was given to him by the Queen in 2003.