At about 1:40am on July 6, William Pritchard, 60, was awakened by a message on his phone from his security system alerting him to movement outside his retirement complex. He looked out of the window and saw a man walking by, but thought nothing of it so went back to sleep.

       The next morning Mr Pritchard noticed all of the 25 goldfish and baby koi - costing ￡500 - were dead or floating in foamy water.

       Horrified, Mr Pritchard checked his security camera and spotted what appeared to be a man pouring chemicals into his pond.

       He said: "I was gobsmacked. I looked through the videos and the camera caught him. I couldn’t work out why he did it.

       "There were one or two fish swimming about on the side and I got them out and put them into water, but they didn’t survive."

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       Mr Pritchard had been keeping fish at his retirement housing complex in Runcorn, Cheshire, since an injury forced him to retire from his job as a joiner. He says he would go and sit next to the pond and draw, but he can no longer do that.

       The father-of-four showed the footage to partner Pauline, 53, the next day before starting to clear out the pond, pump and filter.

       He said: "I've done it about three or four times. I’ve had to scrub the inside of the pond but it’s gone right through filtration system and knackered it.

       "I tried to get it up and running so I found a few pond snails and put them in the water but they died right away."

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       Mr Pritchard estimates it will cost ￡800 to replace the kit.

       Cheshire Police are investigating. A spokesman said: "At 9.30am on Tuesday 6 July police were called to reports of criminal damage at an address.