Broch panel at Keiss 'accidentally destroyed'

WHEN images of a smashed-up broch interpretation panel on the Keiss coastline were published on social media last week many condemned the "mindless act of vandalism".

The strength of feeling was so high that the organisation which set up the standing stone and information panel felt obliged to remove the original post.

Iain Maclean from Caithness Broch Project (CBP) – which aims to promote the Iron Age settlements – said that he had installed the stone with help from community service workers last year.

"It may have been an accident after all," he said. "We had permission to put the stone there by the woman who owns the land and it seems that someone was trying to move it and it got damaged."

Photos taken at the scene last Friday show the substantial flagstone shattered into several pieces and the information panel ripped off.

Co-director of the CBP Kenneth McElroy initially thought that a vehicle had been used to rip out the stone and feared it would be "hard to track down the perpetrator".

The CBP directors claim to now be in discussion with a man who, they say, has admitted to causing the damage.

"We've talked to the person who did it and he has said he will reimburse the costs of fixing it all back up," Mr Maclean said.

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