AN Ipswich family was picking up the pieces today after their pride and joy caravan was torchedThe caravan was reduced to a smouldering frame just moments after its owner confronted youths on the Greenwich estate.

AN Ipswich family was picking up the pieces today after their pride and joy caravan was torched

The caravan was reduced to a smouldering frame just moments after its owner confronted youths on the Greenwich estate.

The man – who was too frightened to be named – came out to chase off youths smashing up a car outside his house.

But, in what he thinks is a revenge attack, his own caravan was set alight only minutes later.

The caravan-owner was planning to use his caravan to set up a business re-enacting medieval battles.

But this idea has been left in tatters after the caravan was transformed into little more than a burnt-out shell.

The Hawke Road resident, who lives with his girlfriend and two daughters, aged four and 12, realised something was amiss when he heard shouting outside his house.

He went outside to see that group of ten to 15 youths were smashing up a car outside his front door.

He said: "I shouted at them to clear off. They were all hurling abuse at me, calling me names and telling me to get back into my house.

"This sort of thing happens all the time around here. Then I saw them take the car to the playground opposite and set it alight.

"I went back into my house and turned the TV up so that I couldn't hear what was going on.

"But about an hour later I went back outside and saw that they had flipped the caravan over.

"I said that I was going to call the police and went back inside. I came back out a little later and saw that it was on fire."

Firefighters quickly arrived and put the fire out. But the caravan is now little more than a heap of charred remains.

The car the youths also attacked – thought to be an A-reg, brown Vauxhall Nova – lies torched and dumped in the playground opposite.

The caravan-owner said: "I just feel like a victim. It is like being in a war-torn area, I would expect to see this sort of thing happen in a war zone, but not in Ipswich.

"I have lived here six or seven years and since I have been here I have had nothing but abuse.

"We are worried about what will happen next. What if we get things thrown through the letterbox?"