A West Cumbrian landlady has added her voice to a call for CCTV after her car was keyed and covered in graffiti this week.

Theresa Bowness, of the Thomas Henry pub in Maryport, said she was distraught on Sunday night to discover that her new Ford Mondeo had been damaged to the extent that it will need to be completely resprayed.

She said: "The graffiti was a very personal insult and not only not true but wasn't even spelt correctly, by the way.

"I think it may have followed an incident in the pub in which I was not even involved."

However, she said she had no way to prove who was responsible because of the lack of town centre CCTV.

Her car was parked in Furnace Lane, just around the corner from her Senhouse Street pub.

She said if the CCTV cameras were being monitored it may have been possible to confirm her suspicions.

Earlier this month, Maryport Town Council agreed to write to police and crime commissioner Peter McCall and call on the Local Government Association for help in its attempts to bring CCTV cameras back into town in the wake of rising crime statistics.

When Maryport's police station was closed and when CCTV monitoring was moved to Penrith, the town lost the service.

Mrs Bowness said town centre businesses need the added protection CCTV gives and has urged those in authority to ensure that Maryport has the same level of surveillance as other towns in the area.