Brave mum foils bid to steal garden

A MOTHER-of-two halted thieves in their tracks as they tried to steal her back garden.
Christine Carr bravely stood in the path of a Transit van to stop the would-be crooks from taking expensive York flagstones from the rear of her St Annes guesthouse. She was alerted by a guest at The Laurels on Clifton Drive North, who heard a loud bang at around 4am last Thursday. The van the burglars were using to move the flagstones had crashed into a parked car. Mrs Carr called 999 before rushing out of her house and standing in front of the van to prevent it driving off. But the brave mum was forced to dive out of the way when the van started up. She said: "I stood in the van's path but when it was about to run me over I had to get out the way. I didn't really think about the potential danger, I was just really angry. "My property and my son's property are the only two on the road which still have flagstones as all the others have been stolen."
Her daughter Sammy, 19, added: "The garden looks a complete mess. "I couldn't believe my mum had stood in front of the van. Apparently, she was inches away from being hit by it. "The flagstones from Mrs Carr's guesthouse were left on the side of the road. She said: "We have managed to recover the stones as they were piled up on the street waiting to be loaded after they had dug them up. "But we will have to get them re-laid and the garden looks a mess. "Crime gangs have targeted five separate addresses – stealing the expensive flagstones. One Blackpool business has been left with a £2,000 bill to replace the stones stolen in one of the raids. The first theft took place on Clifton Drive North in St Annes, when slabs were stolen from a rear driveway during the night of May 15 and 16.
Another theft occurred at the same time when stones were taken from outside the front of a home on Kent Road in central Blackpool. There were two further thefts, one from a home on Albert Road in central Blackpool, which took place overnight between May 24 and 25, and thefts from Church Road in St Annes at the same time Mrs Carr's guesthouse was targeted. St Annes police confirmed two people had been arrested on Thursday after York flagstone were stolen from the address on Clifton Drive North. PCSO Steve Turner added: "All the incidents happened during the night, and arrests were made after a member of the public alerted us about an incident. Following the arrests, some of the flagstones were recovered."- A 31-year-old man from Blackpool and a 20-year-old woman from Poulton arrested on suspicion of theft have been released on bail until June 3.

(Reproduced from the Blackpool Gazette, June 2nd)

GARDIEN TIP: Review the access to your property, checking gates, walls and fences to make it doubly difficult for unwanted people to enter your garden. Advice available at http://www.garden-security.co.uk/garden-crime-prevention.aspx