No way!!! That's God awful! I'm so sorry, MissKatie.
I don't know if it will help you feel better, but honestly I wouldn't rule out total incompetence as being the reason for the scratches. I can't say for sure, but anything involving passports with the UK right now is an outright mess. I've been stalking the UK Visa reddit, and I see lots of people there getting their passports returned with ripped out pages, incorrect vignettes (as in my case), or it is outright stolen/lost. So it could just be some moron tossing them about without a care.
I like Appear's advice though. I imagine it's costly to have it replaced... I think it's always good to leave a paper trail going though, so even if a complaint is documented then it may be looked into properly. I'm sorry, you don't deserve that. <3