He said: “We looked back at CCTV and they’d been messing around between 1.30am and 4am in the morning.
“We hadn’t heard anything and left the church at 3am, by which time they’d been riding the tractor up and down the field for about an hour.
“They actually talked to us as we left, knocking on the car window and said I’ve left some stuff in the church including a black bag, but it was so late I didn’t go back in for it.
“It turns out they came back about 3.50am and smashed their way in through the window as well as targeting the memorial stone out the front with what we think was a large stone or rock.