A pensioner visiting his wife's grave had stones thrown at him by a gang terrorising a city cemetery.

The group of ten Asian males, aged around 20, have been meeting in Undercliffe Cemetery for the last two weeks, pensioner Jack Woodend claimed today.

He said the gang has been vandalising benches and smashing stones from crazy-paving walkways in the historic cemetery most nights from 5pm.

Mr Woodend, 73, pictured, was paying his daily visit to his wife's grave in the cemetery when he saw some of the gang pulling up a path.

"I went over to them and said: 'Lads, you're not going to start throwing stones around are you, this is a cemetery'," he said.

"I told them I would have to clear their mess up and they said they didn't care.

"I turned my back on them to walk away and a stone hit me in the back."

Mr Woodend is a volunteer worker at the cemetery, spending around four hours a day, five days a week, helping to maintain the 26 acres which house more than 23,000 graves.

"Every morning there's two hours work between all of us just picking up their rubbish before we can start our normal maintenance," he said.

The cemetery is in the care of the Undercliffe Cemetery Charity. The group restored the Victorian cemetery to its former glory after the original Cemetery Company folded in 1975.

Colin Clarke, trustee of the charity, said he was worried the vandals were trying to turn the site into a no-go area.

"My feeling is that is what the gangs want. They don't want people walking about so they can do their own thing without getting disturbed," he said.

He said the site has visitors from around the world, with a party of Norwegian university lecturers set to tour the site tomorrow.

"On one hand I'm going out giving lectures on the cemetery and promoting the place as one of Bradford's finest historic monuments, and then at night there's this lot coming in and treating it like a derelict building site," he said.

A police spokesman said officers went to the cemetery to investigate the stone-throwing incident on Friday and arrested two men for possession of drugs.

Police warned cemetery visitors not to approach the gang.

"People should be conscious of their own personal safety and contact the police if they see any wrong doing in the cemetery rather than get involved themselves," he said.

The local community beat officer, and the police community support officers will be patrolling the cemetery.

A spokesman for Bradford Council's Parks and Landscapes department said: "We do have a park ranger patrolling Undercliffe Cemetery but this patrol is the same as any other we operate.

"Park rangers regularly patrol the area and in the summer months they cover it up to 10pm. If they come across any anti-social behaviour they will normally try to deal with it themselves."

He added: "If necessary they will contact the police and pay more attention to an area where an incident has occurred by increasing patrols.

"We are not aware of any problems in the cemetery at the moment."