The scene that greeted Father Joel Wallace from St Patrick’s Church in Albury on Saturday morning was clearly distressing.

The biblical display had been smashed by what can only be described as idiots with far too much time on their hands.

The display was all about sharing the joy of Christmas with the wider community.

But making it open to the public is what ended up bringing about its destruction.

It is simply hard to fathom why some people would inflict such mindless damage on something put together by a church and some of its youngest parishioners.

As Father Wallace says, the simple premise for the display was to “bring a positive message of joy” to the community.

That joy will now be sadly missing this Christmas.

We can only hope that someone who saw the attack, or knows someone involved, can contact the police.

Better still, the vandals should show some moral backbone and hand themselves in.