Victims of a car crime spree have vented their anger and misery over a council foul-up which should never have happened.

In just one month, 40 cars were targeted at the Westgate Centre car park, in Oxford city centre, after a mix-up meant there was no money to pay security staff.

Those on short-term contracts were laid off at the end of September when a budget bungle cut off their cash and, in the month it took to rectify the problem, thieves went on a pre-Christmas crime spree. The sharp upturn in theft from vehicles came as no surprise to police and car park supervisors, as the security patrols - introduced two years ago - had managed to knock down crime by between 80 and 90 per cent.

Security staff are now back on patrol and, as a result, the alarming rise in crime is expected to fall just as dramatically.

Oxford City Council told the Oxford Mail that problems occurred when budgets were being prepared this time last year, and that "some money went into the wrong pot".

Security staff taken back on would now be on regular patrol in the car park until at least March 31 next year.

The assurance provided little consolation for Holly Mason, 22, of Ploughley Close, Kidlington, who had a CD player and CDs stolen when her Citroen Saxo was entered last Friday by thieves using a screwdriver while she was shopping in the city centre.

Miss Mason said: "I looked for a security guard, but there was no-one to be seen.

"The worst thing was, an automated voice asked me to contact the control room to pay extra for the time I had spent trying to find a guard!"

The same night, 18-year-old Christopher White, of Appleton, near Abingdon, returned to his Honda Civic and found thieves had broken a window and taken a car stereo his parents had bought him for Christmas.

His mother, Sue, 47, said: "The police phoned to say they had arrested someone and they had admitted breaking into his car, but there is little chance of compensation as the lad was unemployed."

More than a week earlier Tim Barton, 21, of Gibson Close, Abingdon, lost 600 worth of valuables. He and his girlfriend, Jane Cox, found his Mazda's window smashed and went to find security guards, only to be told they had left earlier that evening.