GAZETTE & HERALD: A 45-year-old Chippenham woman was horrified to receive a call in the middle of the night to tell her that her car had been set on fire in a lay-by.

The lady, who does not want to be identified, had left her Peugeot 405 in the large gravelled lay-by close to Bencroft in Bremhill, Calne, on Saturday night, while she attended a 50th birthday party at the Dumb Post pub.

After leaving the pub later that evening, she went to stay at a friend's house nearby. But at 3.15am, she was woken by people she knew, informing her that her car had been torched.

The woman raced to the lay-by and found her car still burning.

Fire crews were called to extinguish the fire, but the vehicle is now a burned out shell.

PC Alfred Ansell of Calne Police said: "The lady had been unable to find a space in the pub car park, so she went along the road a little and parked with two other cars in the large lay-by.

"Police were called to reports of a burning car and at first thought it had been stolen. But the lady arrived and we learned that it had been burned in situ, which is very rare.

"It may have been that the car had been broken into and that the raiders decided to burn it to destroy any evidence," added PC Ansell.

"But you don't usually get something like this happening in a little place like Bremhill.

"The lady was very upset her car has been destroyed."

The car, which bore Irish registration number plates, was worth around £1100.

Police are appealing for anyone who may have seen anyone acting suspiciously near the car, to come forward.