A £500 bounty has been put on the heads of vandals who wrecked more than 100 memorials in a Sussex cemetery.

Police and Worthing Borough Council have joined forces to offer the reward in a bid to catch and prosecute youths who rampaged through Durrington Cemetery, Worthing, and pushed over a swathe of graves in the secluded north-east corner of the burial ground.

They caused more than £10,000 damage to the memorials, most of which date back to the Seventies.

Today, councillors, cemetery officials and funeral directors joined forces to condemn the actions of the vandals.

Ian Rudkin, superintendent of Worthing Council's cemeteries and crematorium, said the sight of the destruction made him feel physically sick.

He said the vandals must have used "brute force" to push over the 104 memorials sometime on Saturday night.

Mr Rudkin said: "It is just wanton vandalism which breaks your heart, especially when you see a memorial on its back with the inscription 'In memory of our dear mum'.

"I feel as though they have attacked that person, not just the memorial. They have struck in a secluded corner, near Prince William Close.

"There have been groups of youths in there before and we have moved them on."

Mr Rudkin said they were contacted on Sunday morning by a member of the public who found a number of damaged memorials while visiting a relative's grave.

Councillor George Stephens, Worthing Borough Council's executive member for the environment, said: "It is just so sad. I cannot understand why anybody would want to do it."

Peter Kennard, of Tribes funeral directors, Broadwater Road, Worthing, said: "It is frightening what these people get a thrill from."

He estimated it would take stonemasons a month to repair the damage.

Worthing funeral director Ian Hart, who is based in South Farm Road, said: "The actions of these individuals leave us speechless. It really is the lowest of the low."

Officials were now taking photographs of the graves in the hope relatives could be traced, although it was feared most of the graves were not insured, resulting in families facing a bill of more than £100 to restore each memorial.

Both Mr Kennard and Mr Hart pledged to do what they could to help relatives repair the damage.

Broadwater Cemetery, Worthing's first main burial ground which dates back to Victorian times, in South Farm Road, is now closed at night after repeated attacks on memorials.