ROMANY gypsies in Wroughton say people who do not understand their culture are persecuting them without justification.

The settlement, on privately owned land known as The Triangle on the former air base site, arrived on Sunday and is due to move on again this weekend.

The six-family encampment insist they cause no harm, leave no rubbish and all work for a living, but are being tarred with the same brush because of the bad press other travellers receive.

One gypsy, who owned a silver 4x4 vehicle and would only be referred to as Tom, said: "I was born in the back of a horsedrawn caravan near Fairford and have been on the road all my life.

"We don't make a mess, we don't steal and we all work for a living. I have never signed on the dole.

"If someone gave me a house, I couldn't live in it. When you get home from a nine-to-five job and shut the door that's it for a lot of people, but we all like to mingle and put a bit of food on the fire.

"Ideally we would like the council to give us our own site, but that's not going to happen so we keep moving around.

"We don't bother anyone else, but as soon as something goes wrong or things go missing people point the finger at us."

Angelina Jones, 30, and her three children James, 12, Chasey, seven, and Elvis, one, also live in a caravan at the Wroughton site.

She said: "I have travelled all my life and don't know any other way. We get tarred with the same brush as all the other travellers because people don't know our lifestyle. My children have been to schools before and have been bullied and called names it's horrible."

Angelina Price, 40, who lives on the same site with her husband Fred and son John, 11, said: "We are very misunderstood. If councils were to provide us with a pitch with running water and a skip so we could just turn up all these problems would be sorted."

The gypsies' plea comes as Swindon Council plans to spend £75,000 installing traveller-proof defences around the borough's open spaces. Some £6,000 is to be spent on earthworks to stop caravans going onto Snods Hill on Dorcan Way, while another £14,000 is to be spent on defences at Elmore Park in Eldene.

A decision on whether to officially re-open the Chiseldon Firs travellers' site has been deferred until September.

Swindon Council's traveller liaison officer, Tony Westcott, was at the site yesterday on what he described as a "courtesy call" as part of his brief to act as a halfway house between travellers and council.

He said: "I have been in contact with the landowner. He is aware there are travellers here and that they are due to leave at the weekend. I have found them very amiable and we have received no complaints."