Garden thieves leave Durham pensioner "completely shattered" (From The Northern Echo)

Garden thieves leave Durham pensioner "completely shattered"

9:20am Saturday 4th February 2012 in News By Mark Tallentire

A PENSIONER devastated by burglars who stole cherished ornaments from her garden says she will never sit outside again because the area has been left “contaminated”.

Wheelchair-user and great-grandmother Myrtle Lightfoot, 86, said she was shattered and her health has suffered after she discovered a range of garden ornaments had been stolen from her garden in Gilesgate, Durham City, overnight last Saturday.

In a letter to The Northern Echo, she tells the thieves: “If you send me a postcard, I will tie a big yellow ribbon on the garden table and chairs, brass plaque and other items you left behind, and put them by the front gate so you can collect them. To me they feel contaminated.

“I hope you can sleep well – because I certainly can’t, listening for noises.”

Last night, Mrs Lightfoot explained: “The thieves may as well take everything else. I’ll never sit in my back garden again.”

The great-grandmother-of-eight and grandmother-of- 16, has lived at the property with her son, Gary, for 22 years. The garden ornaments were given as gifts by relatives.

Among the items taken were a goddess sculpture, a fairy figurine and cherubs.

Together, they were originally worth several hundred pounds.

Mrs Lightfoot learnt of the theft when her daughter, Joyce Todd, visited on Sunday morning.

A garden table and chairs had been moved from the far end of her back garden and left by her gate, leading her to conclude the thieves were disturbed or planned to return.

She said: “I’ve felt completely shattered ever since. I don’t know what these people are thinking.

“It’s awful – coming into people’s gardens and disrupting their lives. They must have come right past my back door.”

Her letter continues: “The garden ornaments taken were bought over the years by my family for me.

“As I cannot go for walks like I once did, my pleasure in the summer was our lovely back garden.

“I only hope what was special to me gives you, or the person you sold them to, as much pleasure as they did me.”

To report or provide information on a crime, call Durham Police’s new non emergency number, 101.