police and safety officials say vandals have broken into a quarry only days after an 11-year-old boy plunged to his death.

Gavin Reid, from Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, fell from Table Rock at Houghton Quarry on Saturday after he sneaked on to the site through a hole in the fence with a friend.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) officials investigating the death are appealing to young people and their parents to keep out of the site after vandals broke in using wire cutters.

Although the site is surrounded by a two-metre high wire fence, youths have been breaking into the quarry and putting their lives at risk.

Malcolm Moore, HSE's principal inspector in charge of the investigation, said: "You would have thought that Gavin's death would have brought home the danger of anyone illegally entering an industrial site and putting themselves at risk.

"However, we have found that yesterday alone, the site owners have found four separate places where vandals have cut through the fence in order to trespass. "

Anyone caught would be liable to prosecution, he added.