Eighteen cars were smashed up in just one night in the latest crime wave to hit one of Oxford's public car parks.

The vandalism was the worst spate ever at the Thornhill Park and Ride and follows two weeks of rising criminal activity at the car park, off the A40, near Headington.

The past 14 days have seen 19 incidents - apart from Wednesday's vandalism - reported to police.

Car park bosses said they could not afford to have round-the-clock security, unless they imposed charges on people using the car park. But the landlords of the site, Shotover Estates, are refusing to allow the city council, which manages the premises, to bring in parking charges.

Graham Smith, the city council's chief assistant engineer for car parks, said: "We'd love to improve security there, but we can't put any more staff in until the council can charge for parking.

"If I had the money, I'd really seriously consider 24-hour staff on the site. All we can do is provide what we can with the amount of money we have got, and at times we have got gaps. We move the staff around between car parks, but always make sure there is at least one person left."

Of the latest problems, he said: "It just seems to have been wanton vandalism - windscreens were smashed, back windows were smashed, but nothing seems to have been stolen. We've never had as many incidents as that in a night even before we had security staff there."

Police said they were aware of the problem and were investigating.

Last month, the Oxford Mail reported that 40 cars had been broken into in a month at the Westgate centre car park, which is also run by the council.