Children have been left devastated after a playground they spent months fundraising for was wrecked.

Donnington Playgroup in Townsend Square, east Oxford, has been increasingly targeted over the past year by hooligans who have ripped up plants grown by children in the garden.

Now the vandals have returned and ruined a £3,000 playhouse, which was funded by many of the youngsters, aged between three and five-years-old, taking part in sponsored events.

Playgroup leaders are now urging anyone who knows the culprits or saw the vandalism take place last Wednesday to contact the police.

Supervisor Christine Crowther said: "I'd like whoever did this to have been here and seen these children when they came in. They were devastated.

"Some of the children were generally upset and others were absolutely gutted.

"Things like this are going on all the time. It's upsetting that children are learning that when their projects are attacked they have to keep replacing things and they never get to see the end result."

Children arrived with their parents at the playgroup on Thursday morning to discover the playhouse had been knocked over during the night. The building was too heavy to lift or move back into place, and the fall had broken its roof.

Children and parents had spent months fundraising for the £2,850 to buy the playhouse last year. They took part in sponsored bike rides and Easter egg and Christmas raffles.

But it is not the first time the playgroup has suffered from yob attacks. Last summer, vandals caused hundreds of pounds of damage when they ripped up flower beds and pulled down a tree which had been donated to the group.

In December, thugs ripped up tomato plants and used the stalks to write an offensive message on the lawn for the children when they arrived the following day.

Mrs Crowther said: "A lot of the plants damaged in the garden are grown by the children for projects for our Ofsted reports. But they don't last long. In the past the tomato plants have been ripped up, and when the sunflowers were growing the children were keeping charts on their growth, then someone came along and lopped the heads off."

Donnington Playgroup has been open for the past 35 years.

Anyone with information should call playgroup staff on 01865 791200, police on 08458 505505 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.