NHS nurse, 44, returns home to find thieves have stolen her £700 garden furniture set she used to relax in after 13-hour shifts on coronavirus frontline
- Thieves stole NHs nurse Vicki Thompson’s £700 furniture from her back garden
- She had been using it to relax between 13 hour shifts battle the pandemic
- The mother-of-twom, of Leigh, Wigan, says she is ‘absolutely devastated’
- Ms Thompson is a nurse at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
An NHS nurse says she is ‘absolutely devastated’ after thieves stole her £700 garden furniture that she was using to relax between 13-hour shifts battling the coronavirus pandemic.
Vicki Thompson, 44, from Leigh in Wigan, Greater Manchester, said she had worked extra hours to pay for her ‘pride and joy’ and says her garden ‘is the most important place’ during the lockdown.
The mother-of-two discovered the theft of her table, four chairs and sunlounger when taking her dog out at 5am yesterday.
Ms Thompson, a nurse at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, Lancashire, said: ‘My garden is my go-to place. Everyone who knows me knows how much my garden means to me.
‘I am a nurse. We are extremely, extremely busy and everyone is extremely stressed at the minute. My garden is my absolute pride and joy.
The mother-of-two who worked extra shifts to pay for the table, four chairs and sunlounger discovered the theft when taking her dog out at 5am yesterday. Pictured: The nurse’s garden decking after the theft
Vicki Thompson (pictured) from Leigh in Wigan, Greater Manchester, said she is ‘absolutely devastated’ that her ‘pride and joy’ has been pinched from her back garden.
‘I don’t have loads of money or anything like that. Everything that I have I work extra shifts to pay for. I’m absolutely devastated that my stuff has gone.
‘I spend all my spare time that I’ve got in my garden if I can. I have my coffee out there in the morning if I’m off work. When I come home from work I have a little chill in the back garden.
‘It really is the place that we all go to. It’s probably the most important place in our house at the minute.
‘You work very hard to pay for nice things just for people to come and take them.
Ms Thompson found two of the chairs that were stolen abandoned near her home and luckily returned them to her garden.
The garden furniture that belonged to Ms Thompson can be seen here in this photograph taken before the theft
It is believed the thieves could have jumped over her garden fence and carried it out through an alleyway
But the mother-of-two believes the thieves lifted the furniture over her garden fence into a public ginnel – an alleyway – on the other side as two of her chairs were found abandoned there.
Now Ms Thompson’s neighbours are teaming up to see if they have captured the offenders on any of their home CCTV systems.
She said: ‘The ginnel is very secluded. Nobody can see them. They’ve obviously passed it over and off they’ve gone with it.
‘They’ve gone onto the estate at the back of my house because that’s where they’ve left the chairs that we found.
‘My neighbour who lives a few doors down has CCTV on our avenue and there’s no one on that, so it’s obviously all been done from the side of my house due to this ginnel. It is a prime target for thieves.’
Greater Manchester Police were contacted for comment and were not aware of any arrests being made yet.