SICK thugs who killed a clutch of prize hens and burnt down their shed are being hunted by police.

The birds, bought by John Welden for his eight-year-old son, Michael, were killed by attackers in their shed on allotments at Cross Lane, Sacriston, near Chester-le-Street.

The bodies of the battered and burnt hens littered the ground next to the charred remains of the wooden shed which until Wednesday night held more than 30 hens.

Mr Welden, of Westhills Close, Sacriston, said they lost at least ten hens in the attack.

He said: "I don't understand how anyone could do this. What was going through their heads?

"I'd only just bought the pedigree hens for my son, Michael, because we planned to get eggs off them. We paid a small fortune for them.

"Now I had to show him the awful scene down here the other morning.

"They had been into the shed and taken some hens out and bashed their heads on the fence. Then they set fire to the shed with the rest of the hens inside, but thankfully most of them escaped because they left the door open.

"In some ways we are quite lucky because we've got 150 pigeons in the shed next door. If that had gone up in flames as well, it doesn't bare thinking about.

"I don't understand the motive behind it. Maybe they were druggies, I don't know.

"It is definitely not a personal grudge thing though because we never bother anybody. We have no enemies."

Police want to speak to anyone who saw anything suspicious around the Cross Lane allotments before 9.45pm on Wednesday when the fire was started.

A police spokeswoman said: "We are carrying out inquiries in the area to find the culprits, but at the moment we do not have a lot to go on."

Mr Welden is offering a £100 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.