Shocked villagers have described the ‘nasty’ destruction of a war memorial in Tilbury Juxta Clare featuring Jesus on the cross as an attack on Christianity.

According to the East Anglian Daily Times, locals were ‘extremely upset’ when they noticed the memorial’s Christ on the cross statue had been smashed off its plinth and “systematically” attacked to destroy its ears, face, and legs.

Anthony Osmond-Evans, who lives nearby, said he was “appalled” at the damage done to the monument, which commemorates residents of the small hamlet who lost their lives in World War I.

“It’s wanton vandalism of a nasty nature on something which is the core of British society – our Christian religion – and attacking a war memorial too,” he said.

Police are believed to be treating the incident as vehicular damage, but residents of the Essex hamlet insist the specific damage done to the statue, which lies fallen behind the plinth, points to its destruction having been a “deliberate” attack carried out by vandals.

“It’s been quite systematically desecrated,” said Mr. Osmond-Evans. “I think our neighbours are rather shocked, not quite as shocked as we are as it’s happened a couple of times before.

“[The statue of Christ] has been smashed off the top and then laid on the ground and the face and the legs have been smashed off. It’s terrible. This was determined, wilful damage by one or more persons.”

Another local, who didn’t want to be named, said the damage looked like a “hate crime”, telling the East Anglian Daily Times: “It looks like someone has smashed it up with a crowbar, or perhaps a knife.

“It certainly looks deliberate, like someone has set out to do it really nastily.

“The memorial is a real landmark because it has a figure of Christ on it, everyone in the village admires it,” she added.

In November, Breitbart London reported that Dülmen’s Catholic community was left devastated by a wave of attacks on Christian statues in the German village. Local media detailed how ‘not a day goes by’ without locals discovering new damage to religious statues, in attacks that police admitted could have been motivated by anti-Christian religious ideology.

And in France, the nation’s interior minister revealed in February that attacks on Christian places of worship have more than doubled since 2008 while racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic attacks saw a huge fall during the same period.