An estate agent’s office was targeted in a large and ugly protest at the weekend which terrified members of the public.

A branch of Marsh & Parsons, in Shoreditch, east London, had red paint thrown at it and a front window smashed in Saturday’s mass demonstration, in which one police officer was injured.

Masked demonstrators carried pigs’ heads  and torches and burnt an effigy in the four-hour protest.

Marsh & Parsons chief executive Peter Rollings told EYE last night: “The police have informed us that there was a lot of damage to a variety of businesses in the area during the demonstration.

“It is sad and rather depressing.”

Saturday’s “anti-gentrification” demonstration carried echoes of protests earlier this year in Brixton, London, which have repeatedly targeted another agent, Foxtons.

In this weekend’s demonstration, riot police were called in to the protest, which chiefly seemed to attack a food outlet, the Cereal Killer Café.

Owners of the café said that the attack left customer, including children, “terrified for their lives”.

Customers barricaded the cafe doors when the disturbance started.

The wounded police officer was hit by a bottle thrown during the disorder.

The protest was advertised on Facebook and apparently organised by anarchist group Class War.

The event page said: “Our communities are being ripped apart – by Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks, Israeli ******* property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs. Local authorities are coining it in, in a short-sighted race for cash by ‘regenerating’ social housing.

“We don’t want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing.”