POLICE were forced to remove boulders from the road after they had been placed to block a woman’s path.

Sandra Bennett returned from walking her dogs at Oldside in Workington to find that boulders had been moved into the road by members of the travelling community encampment nearby, blocking her exit.

She said: “They knew I was there. When I came back down they’d pulled the stones across the road.

“I had 14 collies in the back of my van it would have got bogged down in the mud.”

Sandra locked herself in the van and was left shaken by the experience. She said: “I don’t know what they had planned, if they just did it as a joke. I felt very intimidated.

“It was scary because I was there on my own. I locked all the doors in the van until the police came.

Sandra said: “They came out of the truck and looked at me for a minute and drove off. When I got out to look they came back towards me and I could see them laughing.”

Sandra waited in her van until officers from Cumbria Police arrived and cleared the road.

She added: “I rang my daughter and she was on her way as well.”

Although the culprits kept their distance, Sandra felt threatened by their behaviour: “They all stood and watched me” she said.

She added that police officers had to move the boulders just enough to drive her van through the gap.

“They managed to squeeze the van with all the dogs in through the gap.”

The coast of Workington was previously a regular haunt for Sandra but she said: “I’m too scared to go down there now.

“This is the first time I’ve felt intimidated, I don’t want to go down there now.”

Sandra was frightened for the wellbeing of her dogs.

“One of them got frightened by the police and took off," she said.

Sandra added that her dogs were precious to her and she would be distraught if anything happened to them.

A spokesperson for Cumbria Police said: “Police were called at 12.35pm on October 22 to a report that boulders had been moved into the middle of the road at Oldside, Workington and were obstructing a vehicle from being able to get passed. Officers attended and made arrangements for the boulders to be moved. No offences were committed.”