Vandals have daubed anti-Islamic graffiti on alls across a town.

Detectives last night offered a reward of £500 for their capture as they scoured Durrington for clues as to the identity of the yobs.

Sussex Police said the offensive slogans had been scrawled overnight on at least 14 locations "all over town".

Chief Inspector Sharon Rowe, of Worthing police, said it there had been a couple of instances of anti-Islamic graffiti over the past few weeks but the hate crime had escalated.

She said "This is certainly something we take very seriously, especially when it is of a racist nature.

"We are working with the community on this to find out who is responsible for such offences.

"The message is really that we know there are young people out there talking about this and we are offering a £500 reward if people are prepared to help us. We want to put a stop to this."

Police enlisted Neighbourhood Watch volunteers and scoured Durrington yesterday for clues they hoped would lead them to the suspects.

It is not the first time Worthing and the surrounding area has hit the headlines over offensive graffiti.

In November last year on the eve of Remembrance Sunday the war memorial was vandalised with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols sprayed on to it. The vandals targeted the 14ft stone cross in Worthing and daubed a nearby home and shop with anti- Semitic graffiti.

During the cleaning process the paint on some of the names of the war dead were erased.

John Mitchell, assistent director of health and housing services at Worthing Borough Council, said such graffiti is not tolerated in the town and that measures are in place to deal with it.

He said: "There are three stages to our approach. The first is our response to dealing with the actual graffit and we have a very effective graffiti removal contractor which cleans up offensive graffiti like this within 24 hours.

"Secondly we work with the police closely on detailing criminal damage caused by graffiti. Finally there is education.

"We live in a multi-cultural society and Worthing is a very tolerent town and we do not accept racism in our community."

Anybody with any information about the graffiti can contact Sussex Police on 0845 6070999.